She is poetry.
Her smile, her stride, her sideways glance,
a sestina in motion.
But how many lines written about her?
A question best unanswered.
To imagine this personal muse once another’s unthinkable.
Or worse, many others’, promiscuous instrument of inspiration,
whole volumes given over to her name.
How many men have penned her golden hair,
her small unpainted mouth, her eyes bright wide and quick?
How many attempts to capture her in sonnet or fast couplet
only to languish in cliché? A sad smirk, an upturned chin,
a blush to humble all men and some few women,
humor and sense, open arms and slender hips, saying,
“Welcome.”
And the poets of yore, were they better poets?
Does she still yearn for their concise quatrains,
their firm grasp of image and simile?
Or perhaps she still unwraps symbolism and elegant
phrasings well into the night.
As a poem about a far star cannot compare to its light,
how can mere words on a page hold even a part of her?
Too many questions to answer in clumsy rhyme
or pathetic penultimate line.
But impossible these the first, uncreative words laid at her fair
altar. She deserves better.

´06