The Red Room

For me, she paints her mouth a fragrant red,
And flicks her hair with tutored finger-tips,
Then smiles, and tilts her head,
And drinks my words with her sugar lips.

When she rehearses her act to see,
I will marvel, all very rapturous-eyed,
But I also consider that there must be,
A thousands deaths her heart has died.

As a gentleman, I also play my part;
Treat her softly and white as snow,
Give words of comfort for her heavy heart,
And carry a tissue for her tears that flow.

But in the mirror I see her alone,
As a lady delicately indiscreet
Without the staged thoughts to atone,
The image and lady intimately meet.

She looks at breasts with her lady's eyes
To show an expression so very bland;
Breasts shaped to soothe a baby's cries
But now accustomed to my lingering hand.

Her eyes are cast over a belly round,
Beyond the breasts and a wrinkle more,
They pause and ponder an unknown mound,
Then leave the mirror for the floor.
 
Just a moment her thoughts stray
Away from the mirror and its show;
A mysterious look that can not stay,
Within a moment that I will forever know.

About the poet/painter