Not even gold-plated but a mock, humbly made and humbly bought;
Yet still I mock you, your moon face and flat plains of body, the slivers of woman there, but barely.
You treacherous, rotten holder who caged me ‘hind glass, who walks away quick, I most see your back
whilst I am nailed to wall, crucified, stuck, racked.
How I delight confining you in turn: any vain thought I dilute with doubt, let you go in no-where mazes
when you try to trace any vein of beauty on your face.
Oh! I love whispering, ‘you are only a draft of beauty’, just for you to approach, come close, come closer –
Your misted breath blurs your geography, blanks your map, so you can thumb, gliding on glass, a new appearance.
Sometimes I hear you strain to secure a bundle of consoling thoughts:
You tilt your half-moon eyes and full-moon face, and say a moon can be pretty
like a glow in gloom, like a sun gloved in silver,
in smudges of night, that glim of glitter.
You pause; lift a palm. Your fingers print maps on my face and I,
I pause, under your touch delicate. For a moment – I am quiet.