When trying to make the ugliest of ugly - 
to help identify the evil amongst us - Darwin’s half-cousin*
was surprised to find that a composite of criminals’ faces
created a visage quite attractive, and understood.
 
 
Beauty surfaces by removing all the
(ugly) alterations. In faces at least,
beauty is the absence of variation.
Beauty is basic structure, average.
 
 
And this is why we must always lie to beauty. 
So it doesn’t hang its head, hunch its shoulders,
and drag its feet until it tucks, folds, wears itself away.
Beauty is delicate and rare; it cannot take the truth.
 

*Sir Francis Galton