“For office workers who have fallen into debt because they spend their salaries on dresses, for women who require regular appointments with podiatrists to compensate for the ravages of years on high heels, for the victims of disastrous plastic surgery, for those who deprive themselves of sugar, for invalids who rise from bed only to dress and make up and then fall back exhausted, for those who weep in front of mirrors, for those with great legs and bad tempers, for mutton dressed as lamb, for those who sweat and strain their muscles out of fidelity to the illusions of a form.
“Spare them diseases of the skin and teeth, for in their sacrifice of time and health and friendship they have given hope to strangers whose hearts have been lifted at the sight of a line that finished itself finely, of colors undreamed of by nature, of constructions which at once affirm and quite deny the body’s range.
“Bless them, because a change of fashion can allow us to believe there could just be, for all of us, a change of heart.
“Grant this for the sake of Your love, which has adorned the mountains and created feathers and elaborate tails, O Lord, source of all that exists for delight only, for display only, suggestions, in the joy of their variety, of the ecstacy of light which is eternal, changeless and ever-changing.”
—Mary Gordon, from “Prayers”