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What the World Craves
The world is full of cravings,
and once I craved it all:
success, beauty, intelligence
and kindness.
But can it all be had at once?
Ask the politician’s sister
or the starlet’s hairdresser.
I think the world craves fairness,
much as it is in its nature not to give it.
We are so taken with the world of movies
that we believe
even their most impossible
possibilities:
that the thin man
can love the fat girl,
that the beautiful woman
might choose the homely man.
Perhaps she craved the impartial eye—
that part of her who could love the man alone—
but how long did Julia Roberts
stay married to Lyle Lovett?
I tried it once, saying I was going to look for something
other than outward attractiveness,
and it wasn’t his short stature
or his balding head that ended it.
It was the other woman
and the wheeler-dealer ways—
his debts I assumed
that were never paid back.
In the end, the rest of him lacked as much
as the looks I overlooked.
I see the child throw his body
over the spoils fallen from the piñata,
snarling and threatening any child
who tries to claim even one.
I see the plain girl
sitting on the sidelines at the dance.
I see the children starving in dry countries
while the powerful sit plotting on their yachts.
Yet still, even now,
much as it is in its nature not to always give it,
I think the world craves fairness.
