Oklall. Written mostly in 1946-47, when the Feminine Mystique was at its most pervasive, this
poem's central image (in 1976) seems trendy. It first saw print in the Canadian collection, 1973.

                                             Auction Pit
Prologue

Striped shirt or morning pants, white tie or none,
Smooth-shaven some, others strong of shoulder,
Men jostle lightly, push up to the platform,
With intricate courtesy, Queensbury rites, in the pit
Where the women are auctioned.

In the old days,
Till they stripped off the superstructure,
Hoopskirted ladies were trained to a gentler strain, spirit
Unlikely as limb was to show through the swaddling.
Then there were auctioneers, mothers and maiden aunts,
And elder sisters.

Streamlining, sequin sheath, and strictly divided
Breast-moulding bathing suit, have done for the body
What the unparallelled
High-educational fine opportunities
Offered by charm mags,
Moom-pitcher palaces, as well as success schools,
Business schools, sororities, and secretaryships
Have done for the mind and soul.

The girls cry their own wares now,
With style and strident art, full worthy
The masters of the antique trade.

Procession

This first in line today, she knows her points:
Displays the supple limbs and arching back.
This girl can be had for money, advertise
The swing of hips and sway of short fur
Chubby on her shoulders.
Here is no art nor artifice. She sells
Nothing but flesh for the bare bottom price of cash.

That slender piece back there, the one
With the whispering talk and the willowy walk: who has
The price for this must offer more than money.
Bid your attention, Gentlemen,
The soft voice sibilates:
I am not strong,
But I am sweet; I shall need all your care;
I'm woman-weak, and chill seeps from me
Through the flesh and spirit;
But for the warmth you give, I'll flower-worship
You as my sun, and thank you prettily
For all you pay.

This other is rounder and firm of step:
She would scorn money, needs no lingering care.
Her face is pretty, and sweet with love.
She sells simplicity; her body
Is built to a biologic frame; she'll take
Her pay in kind, from the strong-shouldered man:
The seed to form large noisy children;
The arm to build a wall against the world.
She wants no more.
For a man of simple and sturdy ways
She is cheap at the price, and the salt of
The earth; many will want her, but bidding
Is little likely to go high. She understands
No art of contract, and her needs are
Elementary, and the truth is
There are quite enough of her to go around.

They pass; they come and go.
The girl-child, dimpling, asks indulgence; and the
Spinster, cased in starch, shaped in her dress by an
Imperious iron, flat as a board, disdains affection,
Asks security.
And many more: this one in tweeds wants family; and that
In chiffon asks a lover's eyes to follow her eternally without
Results. Each one goes by. From time to time
A single bid, offered in ignorance, or out of passion,
Is seized upon, and then the crowd cries:
"Love—A marriage made in heaven,"
And the two depart, leaving the rest with sadness
In their hearts. But for the most,
The price runs high and low through the fleshy procession.
From one shape to the next across the boards, small choice
Except as fancy stretches with the purse.

Distinction

White Tie, eyeing the trading from an advanced
Position of disinterest to one side, straightens
His stance at the sound of a crisper cry
Than has been heard yet from the crowded stalls.
This straight proud woman mounts the steps
To sale, and displays
Indifference quite elaborate as his own. She cries no price,
But stipulates just that the bidding be precise.
This is not mother, daughter, whore, nor wife,
But courtesan; she has no choice, most feminine of women,
But to mould her rich
Endowment of nuance to what price buys her.

She sells suggestion:
        of cleverness to carry off
The chic complexity of social stipend.
       intelligence to build a sounding
Board, if she accept the bid of brain-prestige.
        self-centered grace to shower on black
And silver service in a rich man's home.
       of sensual calculation to fulfill
Desire, if admiration is her wage.

Love, money, home, adventure, intellect,
Society, fine clothes, fine words, or eminence ...
Some few or all of these White Tie must bid ...
And heavily, for now the price runs high.
All things to all these men, she waits to learn
What butcher, bravo, prince, or puritan
Will top the offers and command
Her being. A chimera, she changes shape to suit
Each bid, and as the price soars so her charms increase.

White Tie, impatient at the boorish crowd,
Spurning the men unworthy of this creature,
Always a spender and a self-willed man,
Must have the woman, and he crowns
Each bid with casual grace and smiling scorn.
She will be his; she was ordained for him.

Epilogue:

Off in a corner of the market place
a curious creature stands
in some confusion at the furious trading:
nor buyer, nor seller,
not engaged in commerce:
clearly untrained to perform although
just as clearly in the shape of woman.

Men brushing by, stop,
finding it beautiful
and pleasing among them.

From time to time the curious creature
falls into conversation with such men
—timid or haughty, too poor or too rich
to buy hastily—as bid infrequently
and can enjoy such strangely-neutral
entertainment while they wait
for an appropriate enticing cry
to prick them back to business from the auction block.

Some kindly souls,
instinctively protective-masculine,
stop to direct—or help
it to the crowded stalls:
a woman lost should be
returned to cover:
this one, in proper form,
might be a piece worth bidding
high and paying pretty for.

A few rude fellows rub against it now and then,
thinking, a woman-body for the asking:
but these are frightened easily by conversation
and stumble off pulling their pockets for the price
of something satisfying to a man's desires.

A curious creature:
not for sale;
yet not free.
Nor can it understand why,
being already among the men,
it must depart and make
a journey back on some one
single arm: selected,
signed and sealed—and delivered?

The men are wiser:
they are familiar
with profit as a function
of possession: happiness
surely lies in what they call
their own.

The curious creature mingling
in their midst will not
be owned.

They fondle it in passing,
smile and speak perhaps, pass by:
press forward to compete then bids
for proper women on the auction block.