NEATNESS IN A PACKAGED CHILD

This matriarchal panther
in cantilevered gingham
declares to her Samantha,
'We'll beat 'em, girl, we'll sting 'em!'

Her eyes are set in focus
on her dear five-year-old,
a springtime blooming crocus
with limbs as gold as gold.

A prepubescent siren,
high-stepping, coached nymphet,
limbs sculpted as by Myron,
Sam's wild career was set

before she'd blown the candles
on her third birthday cake.
With gown and gilded sandals
in her first pageant's wake

her figure brought resentment
to other mothers' eyes
and shivers of contentment
to judges - and the prize.

Some eighty-thousand dollars
Sam's won since those first five
and gowns like silk corollas,
a Ford she cannot drive.

Despite her singing teacher
her voice is still a kid's,
but no young child can reach her
in lustful batting lids.

You'll say that she is twenty
when she begins to dance,
and all the cognoscenti
are crazed to see her prance.

Yes, Mum has skilled her daughter
in everything she knows.
Sam's limbs are harder, tauter;
she smells of ersatz rose.

A princess in her slumbers,
she's learned like any pro
concupiscence by numbers,
a truly thrilling show.

Sam's fledgeling hips and buttocks
spin round with sexy flair
as streamlined as ship's futtocks;
the judges sweat and stare:

sophisticated lechery
in sequined cloth azure
as baby eyes. No treachery
is barred, no sexual lure

renounced, no ruse forsworn.
The pageants blur together:
for this the child was born -
to twirl in fur and feather.

Mom's Buick eats the road,
LA to San Diego;
for months they've to'd and fro'd
sustained by beans and sago,

a dusty couple, sure,
schooled in life's bitter college
and knowing what youth's for.
They're certain in the knowledge

with all the winks and nudges
and Sam's consummate skill
she'll cause priapic judges
to salivate at will.