No 6: MADONNA’S PERFORMANCE OF VOGUE

PHOTO BY LUCIA AUERBACH

CHARLOTTE LOKEY

Madonna’s Performance of Vogue at the VMAs, 1990

In between the litany of powdered wigs and sumptuous 

lace fans, between pursed lips and feathered decolletage

There lay the breathy, whimpering story 

Of a certain Venus

She, unborne of the drab superiority of common man, 

Veins filled with blustering temptations, embraced with 

Sinewy, melanated arms to the House to end all others. 

Where jesters become queens, and queens become mothers 

Perhaps too soon for tender eyes, 

perhaps too late for dear Venus.