As my daughter gets older,
her questions magnify my values.
“What’s wrong with armpit hair?”
“Why do you wear makeup
even on the weekend?”
“Why do you cover up your grey?”
I try to answer,
but my vanity and feminism
and an unexpected righteousness
are knotted together so tight
that I can’t quite tell
which is which.
But today she asked me
why I wear Spanx,
and for some reason,
this one was easy.
I showed her the jump scene
in Dirty Dancing,
and I said,
“That is what it feels like for me
when I wear Spanx,”
then we danced together to the rest
of the song
and if you could have seen us,
laughing so hard,
you would have agreed
we were perfect.