Do you see her?
She is buried by her own regard beneath Stolichnaya soaked tree out back
fingers bound with whispering, her mouth artless in its appetite for deception
she’s yours if you’ll have her, the gaudy paint washed off, she’s quite the peach
stretching her capacities like yawning olive tree, aching to unburden heavy fruit
Do you see her?
Or just her famine, dripping from exposure?
To sore things and empty eyes, voting their dislike in shards
She hasn’t the mercy of your mother nor the muscles of your brother
Hers is a hungry abstaining of will and transfer
If she could she’d eat the pink
But illusion renders her welcome and like the rest
She settles in for the long haul, a bag of peanuts and a fat lip
You promised her sanctuary, a place that has never existed
Except in gilded books and crevices of time
Where he left her be and she grew into something golden
Even as the light didn’t get in.
Do you see her?
She is shining until it’s all used up
Then someone else will take over
And the lint of her swept up
Will be recycled for another audience, another era
Thinking they’re the first
To witness such a thing.
(Photo by Ruth Marie Westwood, 2020.)