It’s phony as a photo in The Weekly World News.
The face of a beauty queen with the build of a Teamster,
any number of suburban housewives aboard UFO’s,
newborn babies sprouting tentacles, beards and extra heads.
Retouched so the seams disappear, it’s a product
of wishful thinking married to an unerring skill for scandal.
It’s shoddy as an overpainted canvas –
Elvis on velvet, or maybe kittens in clown costumes –
which, the conservator’s X-ray reveals,
obscures a product of true genius underneath.
Once the garish color can be jimmied off,
this original proves priceless, the missing masterpiece.
It’s bogus as a midway game of chance.
The target is some blowsy plywood blonde
with a parasol and hat askew.
You just stick your face where
her face isn’t and revelers pay to play
hardball right between your eyes.