Let us consume each other

Her virtue has been easy, used
by her and others as a shortcut to a woman:
as she herself describes, with talent, craft and humour,
brought to bear on glorious debauchery;

The cover skills of artifice – nails and cosmetics,
heels and hosiery and lingerie, perfume –
each one has been applied with tender care
as temple gifts to raw and ravishing desire; 

In creating skin-deep beauty she portrays
the surface of a woman, dressed to please herself;
an illusion that reflects – to illustrate the fire,
the feminine, that burns and shines inside.

Born into ~

Well, I was born into this mode, he said: 
this world of laziness and compromise and
making-do and just-about complacency;

When what I really wanted was straight lines
and boxes ticked and then you have perfection –
at least, in execution not design –
with just a curve or two thrown in, with grace,
to demonstrate some thought, that creativity exists ~

But also, darling, on another level, on a different day,
I could have been more female from gestation:
wonderful and powerful, resilient strong and complex;
someone who’s singing from the heart instead
of seeking patterns in a wilderness of thought ~