Pretty is as Pretty Does

I'll buy the fact that she's pretty
and ambitions
and smart
and dresses well.
I'll buy the fact that she can talk about movies
and has dabbled in the trends of yoga
and comes from a distinguished up-East family
with mainstream morals.
But she's a nightmare situation for the cause of enlightenment,
lacking in the milk of human kindness
and a negative read on the scale of spiritual generosity.
I suppose you must persist in saying she's a 'good person'
when what you mean is she has a good job.
I suppose you must continue to defend
her hostility toward the human race
as a sign of her immense perceptiveness and self-confidence.
But last I checked there are pretty girls with ugly hearts
and fertile brains with bankrupt souls.
It would be a shame for us to get confused -
and an even bigger shame
for us to stay confused.


A spade is still an ever lovin' spade.
A banana is still a banana.
A Mother Teresa is a Mother Teresa.
A Mr. Ginsberg is a seller of 'Sphincter'.
A canine is a canine.
A cable connection is usually stolen.
And a small-hearted girl in Gucci
is still a small-hearted girl in Gucci.


Carrie Amestoy says: "I am a writer. I am a woman. I am a painter of unknown stars. I am a circus. I am a rock through the window. I am a college graduate. I am always in love. I am reincarnated every time I collide with someone's genius for hope. I am anything which has ever believed. I am the brightest day of the world. I am all the religions that have died when a mother or father didn't teach their child faith. I am the last to come to dinner."