Defaced

I was reading a book of poetry...lovers were dying. She rode by, looking like a young lady from Mayberry R.F.D., long wavy brown hair tied neat with a blood red bow. Beach cruiser bike, not the usual pimped out affair of my urban stretch. As she passed, I saw her tattoo...similar to the one above but the beak facing left, beginning at the corner of her left eye and fanning out across her cheek and down to the jawline. WHY? I've got nothing against tatts, but fiercely dislike facial tattoos or piercings. I'm too old I guess. No! It's more than that. All that is denatured makes me value what is not. A friend of mine just texted me to say she got three new piercings: nose, lip, and tongue. I want to rip them out.

I sat in the cafe,

book open to the page my lover and I died on

word by word, as cinder we lit there

burning our final holes 

My arms worked the surface of my soup

legs scissor spread and snapped

treading water posthumously as she passed...

the two wheels of her

ambling in parade.

Her left eye cried full peacock 

feathered tips brushing her chin,

blue-green plumage of courtship

in the un-posturing position of peafowl blush

Saddened by the ruse upon her cheek,

I mourned her skin

fanning embers with fleshy molt

and pressed her artifice

into the fire.

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