Deconstruction Poem by David Alpaugh

“This was no playhouse but a house in earnest.”
—Robert Frost, “Directive”

At Mattel Toys in Rahway, New Jersey, in 1973,
We built Barbie’s vinyl playhouse by the skidful
To go under your Christmas tree.
We did, my colleagues and me.

To my left a youth who wanted to kill Whitey;
To my right a HONK-if-you-love-JESUS nut;
straight ahead a Cuban exile someone said
Was really built (all I could see was her butt) .

The man in the middle was me.

And I was as white as the housewife’s
Wash you see every weekday at three;
Yes, I was whiter than Moby Dick,
Bobbing on an Ahab-angry sea.

Maria snapped in isinglass windows.
Curtis stapled on the roof; Nat, the floor;
Joe College (I) got the thinking man’s
Job—attaching the “detachable” door.

Then I’d pass it to the Jehovah’s Witness
Who’d wince as she put Babylon in a box;
And off it would go on a conveyor belt
To LA, Sioux City, or the Bronx—

Where America was building dreamgirls
With oohs & aahs beneath a tinselled tree:
“Look at Barbie’s playhouse! ” Megans
& Tiffanies sighed: “She even has a tiny tv! ”

I’ve seen photographs of weary Asians
Laying track for the railroad industry;
I’ve seen real Mexicans on their knees
Picking lettuce for the A&P.

Many have worked hard for little;
Few harder for less than we—
Who sweated in worn-out jeans and khakis
For a doll who cried, APPEARANCE IS ALL

As the White House began to fall in 1973.