Zero Intolerance
I am a model, it's a doddle,
if you are nice and neat,
and cause a clamour with your glamour,
long as you don't eat.
I'm super-thin, I'm bone and skin,
I'm at your beck and call:
that's how I earn - for when I turn,
you can't see me at all.
Of course I know, suppose I pose,
that I am flat and mannish,
but what a trick, when I'm a stick
which can completely vanish.
Last week, when idling, ripe for sidling
out before the crowd,
I saw some burly catwalk girls.
I almost laughed out loud.
Signs of muscle, signs of bustle –
and here the picture worsens –
beneath their slips, some bulging hips:
They looked like normal persons.
Why, you could grab at hints of flab,
and see they had a tummy:
they joined our ranks, these spindleshanks:
call that a tailor's dummy?
The buyers roared, and said Good Lord
to glimpse such pounds of flesh.
I went to eat my weekly treat
(a spoonful of crème fraiche).
It will not do, their ballyhoo,
and no, it will not last:
to prove it's risible, being visible,
I'm starting on a fast.
