by Joyce Carol Oates
Originally published in The Paris Review, Spring 2001.
A poem too can be a garrote. —Anon.
Though you learned the dance routines they made you learn
and you were 1996 Colorado State All-Star Kids Cover Girl
and you were 1996 America’s Royal Little Miss
and you were 1996 Little Miss Charlevoix
and 1996 National Tiny Miss Beauty
it’s never enough.
Randy Souther
I'm a Reference Librarian at the University of San Francisco's Gleeson Library, and I run the Joyce Carol Oates web site, Celestial Timepiece.
Celestial Timepiece 