Illusory Vanity

They walk with the predatory
grace of leopards, graceful
and poised with a natural
assurance, born to the catwalk.
Their lissome, taut bodies
the envy of moneyed mature
women resentful yet bitterly
admiring of their unblemished
complexions, their pillowy
pouting lips and innocent
hauteur. Yet their sun-kissed
limbs are frail, the adolescent
high-fashion models frankly
underweight, a vehicle,
nothing more, much less
for the impossibly stylish clothing
they model. Carelessly at ease
languidly self-assured, dedicated
to self-denial spurning all
but a subsistence diet in the
greater interests of 'getting ahead',
making the fashion plates of
glossy magazines in a bid for
renown and demand, they earn
the envy they arouse in the 
well-fed matrons whose delusions
haute couture creates, that their
acquisition of the costly garments
confers on the wearer youth,
fitness and the very miracle
of dialling back time they so
hugely crave to fulfill themselves.