Letter of love to the Lady of the Scarves

                Today, you fluttered through my doors like a crippled angel.


  You wrapped your scarf like a noose,
a sad, gray snake coiling
but never squeezing nearly
  hard enough.


                                  you wear a deathmask
                      beneath your powders and coral lipstick,
      my 1952 perfection, little blonde thing,
                        just like I do.


                I can smell a part of you dying,
                  locked and hidden behind
                your convincing grimace

                                                             

                                                            and let me hold your heart
                                                          like a flower,
                                                                  lest it bloom and collapse,

                                    give me your skin,
                        as sheer as a cobweb in moonlight,
                                      let me open it like a gift,
                and scoop out the dark that plagues you,

                                         
                                                give me your nether lips,
                                        as pink as a kiss, swollen with their art,
                                              and I will give you angel fire
                              in return.


    and do not
            weep over the death
      of your child face,



                                        for a woman who
                                loves a woman

                                                            is forever young.