My Whiteness

Fishbelly white, she complained. 

(What was her name?) Too fair, she said, 

meaning the sun excised her skin 

and left her pink. 

I was not too fair, but fair 

enough,  and serious in tanning:  baby oil, iodine, 

mostly the legs, long brown legs crucial 

in the prevailing story of a beach,  a pool, 

sports on wide green fields. 

I played 

that role, concocting from my chaise

(aluminum, a small lawn)  a girl

who fit the prevailing tale, a kind of queen

pictured in all the magazines.