Horse Fever Barbie

                                    for Ruth Handler

Though born into 50s Amerika

Barbie never really liked fashion dolls.

She preferred her Friend Flicka or

the Breyer herd, their dappled hindquarters

and molded manes, her debt to plastic coming

in Paint and Appaloosa, and something

she could buy with her petty cash

from babysitting.  The neighborhood kids  

rarely threw tantrums.  They ate her popcorn by

the handful and listened to her stories, 

 though she  sometimes had a hard time

 making the human characters

 believable.

 

When her mom tried to drag her to Gimbel’s

for shopping, this Barbie went bananas, 

recalcitrance born of odd preference for

trotting the paths of the park with her

sheepdog.  She was willing to give up the

department store luncheon, opting instead

for the corner drugstore, the lime cokes

       and catchup-doused fries

 served by savvy waitresses who

 were already into tattoos and bad attitudes.

For years she forewent the cute dresses and pumps, or

 the hippie frocks, or the fish-net stockings and

psychedelic miniskirts she was kind of

         starting to like.

Although not trying to make a statement,  

she despised wasting time on the picky details,

or worrying about nails on a trip to the barn

where real horses nibbled on her hair, warmed

her shoulders with their breath, pressed velvety

muzzles against her cheeks.

 

When Barbie started to grow real boobs her

friend Steffi’s dad said  beware of riding.  You could

pop your cherry on an old mare and then no real Stallone would ever

give you more than a temporary canter. And there was the doctor who

thought himself privy to her secrets, prying for details

on equitation and its orgasms

Poem & image:  Miriam Adelman.