She wore a yellow suit and sat still on Sundays

16 Oct 2023 inspired by a recent portrait of a favorite writer of mine, my mind removed the painted image, re-peopled it as a new she, this scene opened in my mind, transformed, and a sonnet came out.

You – knotted – sit. Taper’d fingers longing,

rolling nothing ‘twixt their stained emptiness.

O, that my skin could be the thing you sting

‘tween those nervous digits, delirious.

Eye caught - mirror - guilty mustard velvet,

acrid tobacco clings, precarious

ripe as desire in this careful, placid

pleasant present dampened time upended…

Your pared sepia nails are not for me

the crisp, white filter slides home in my place

I lose your gaze, slow pucker, pull and hiss

as the flame of your fag brightens your face

She never wondered what I might taste of

Trembling still in the baring of my love