Admiring a Work of Art (poem)

I had the best time writing this poem.


I know you only as a work of art,
staring at your portraits sprinkled in my mind like stars.
Stone cold eyes; locked, loaded and fixated on me
but, as frigid as you think they appear, your big brown eyes
are melted down by some so much darker they are almost black...
focused,
but shaking from their own hurt and loss;
the rapid friction between lid and eye ball
causes them to water.

Still seeing the calm in yours though...
the tameness beyond the wild.
I bet that your touch is delicate.
I'm looking past your Picasso-painted nails
to imagine soft finger tips, leading
limbs that bend so delicately to another hand...
Weaving wonderful flesh baskets of warmth.

My ears, grown a fraction deaf from life's high volume,
listen to the vulgarities coming from your mouth...
the same four letters that I spew out daily are handled,
by my ears, with a cushion. A love for obscenity
because I know it's a mask for vigor and a cherishing
for life.

You could not possibly recognize your beauty
as I do. I am weathered...beaten, worn and wrought:
hurt and dying slowly, like everyone, but I'm aware of it.
And through awareness I see more than a pretty woman,
a wild woman, perhaps sometimes a cold woman...
I see a harness for compassion and a shoulder for
someone so lucky to rest on.
And my dark eyes close...only to dream of yours.