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Soap has always been a disappointment.
I never won Miss Pears even though
Mum said I should. At six I was probably
Too blond and pale; they wanted
A darker, more robust beauty I guess.
In my teens, acne stained my skin,
The doctor recommended
A hot flannel and Cuticura soap,
All it did was splinter my face with
Cracks like the surface of the moon.
As a young woman I tried the Camay test
But my cheeks never creamed like the
Beauties in the adverts.
A damp dullness pervaded.
One Christmas I bought my husband
A rugby ball of soap on a rope,
For a while it hung from the shower hook,
Dried up, unwanted and then disappeared.
In my underwear drawer I have
Mini soaps from hotel rooms
Which I thought might come in useful,
But their scent faded long ago, along
With the memories of what we shared.
My dad always used Wright’s Coal Tar soap
Which marked the sink with yellow wax,
A Sunday morning, scrubbed clean smell.
When I came back from the hospital alone,
I opened his bag; breathed in my dad.
Now my Dove beauty bar knows better
Than to offer promises it cannot fulfil
It holds no illusions of eternal youth
Or flawless perfection; but there is simplicity
In its whiteness and contentment resting in its wings.