Jane wants to wear the necklace she brought: it would please
her mother. But everything that pleases
Jane’s mother is what’s wrong with Jane’s mother.
Jane is a very attractive woman, says her mother,
by which she means I need to lose ten pounds. Jane needs
to lose ten needs: the need to disprove,
the need to need, the need to disapprove,
the need to use the dusty treadmill in her mother’s basement.
The necklace, like all jewelry, is meant to mean. It means