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Page 210

When we turn over a new leaf (which is how
Adam came to know Eve -- he flipped up
a fig leaf; came to know, then knew to come),
the untouched page is new, clean. It sparkles,
like the white shirt washed by the name brand,
coruscating with tiny twinkle marks (pulsing starlets).

Write on it? How can I smirch it? How can I speak
here, thus, tongue-Tide with Joy. Here is a pure
Ivory tower of page (pre-Fab); what if
my pen Oxidal to pieces? Easy Duz it.

Odd how I buy laundry soap without noticing
the brand name. It's all brand X to me. I see without noticing --
it's brand ecstasy. I notice "free of artificial fragrances",
"biodegradable" (why not bioUPgradable?), "64 oz." and
"$7.99" (yes, reader, way back in 20 aught 4, one could purchase
a bottle of detergent for less than $300.00.) But the only
brand names I recall are from the radio commercials
of my childhood (1940s), when "the soaps" were really soapy,
Duz did everything and Fab was only a soap, not Paul,
George and the Ringo that Ivory never left around the tub
in the John.

Segue to high-tremolo Wurlitzer organ chords and
we return to Helen Trent, Grand Central Station, Juanita
and Back Stage Wife...

Recently I bought new undershirts, and, putting them
in the drawer, realized my old ones were gray, though
regularly sloshed with detergent. (DeterGent -- brand name
for a chastity belt? Garlic-scented mouth wash? DeterGent,
the lesbian's second-best friend!)

I want to parallel this graying-through-use with pages of books,
but it's no go. I leave this simile to simper. Similes
should be discovered, not manufactured: "A simile! Well,
I smile!"

Note: Stanza 2 is full of name-brand laundry detergents – mostly still arond, I think (Tide, Joy, Ivory, Fab, Oxidal, Duz). Stanza 3: The old ads for Duz said "Duz does everything!" The Beatles (Paul, George, Ringo and John) were the Fab Four (I hope you all knew that already!). Stanza 4 recalls the ambience of the soap operas, the daily radio serials ("Helen Trent," etc.) sponsored by the soaps, whose only musical background was usually the Wurlitzer.

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