READING MADAME DELUXE

(inspired by Tenaya Darlington)



She started with a pair of sunglasses -
Turtle bone and rhinestones,
Like Dame Edna Everidge, perhaps.
She’s got a shock hair-do
Like one of the girls from the B-52’s,
She’s into mythology, legends of the Eskimo,
Moon spirits, the supernatural as History:
Succulent eyeballs read the future: The dominant male is dead!
Betty Flintstone was a myth -
Woman was just a lump of fat for cavemen to knock about.

It’s a long way from Nanook of the North
to Norry the Neanderthal,
But I can jump the freezing stream.
The Ice Age is not retreating fast enough,
Southern France as cold as Northern Canada.
Life is a bitter struggle, but Neanderthal Man
can laugh - a sense of humour is essential for survival.
Meat makes up the bulk of his diet;
No McDonald’s here - it’s bison and bear
and deer! deer! deer!

Cold moon outside the cave. A young female
goes into labour, soon there’s a new baby
parked on her lap. The mother needs nourishment,
an extra thousand calories a day to feed the new arrival.
The group are disgruntled. It means more hunting.
I can see a tiny skeleton - it’s bad for baby!