by Marianne Kunkel

After Annie Leibovitz’s side-by-side portraits of Susan McNamara, 1995


You haven’t changed, though change is what you do.
Tank top, wire glasses, pixie cut by day;
at night you wear a spider-crown of jewels.

You Vegas showgirl, I first gazed at you
at age 12. Now 40, I absorb your gaze.
You haven’t changed, though change is what you do.

At left, in black and white, thin lips askew,
you smirk—your makeup-less face on display.
At right, you wear a golden crown of jewels

with 18 spikes. This helmet locks your hairdo
in place, chestnut extensions to your waist.
You haven’t changed, though change is what you do

for hours—affix shell-shaped bikini with glue,
paint eyelids ombre mauve, iron silk cape,
hoist up that 25-pound crown of jewels.

At 12, I found your scarlet pout aloof;
now, my own lips stained, I see a power play.
I haven’t changed, though change is what I do—
students know me by my spider-crown of jewels.

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