The Woman
By Juan Sacelli
who knows what choices we’re called on to make
that mark the faint line between fate and mistake
that fly out of season and lead us to fall
that seem to be reason, yet keep us in thrall –
but the call of a woman is the sound of the knell
that sounds all the notes in the length of the scale
for when she has called you, you’ll give up your will
if she calls you and leaves you
you’re left like a shell
if she calls you and wants you
you’ve no chance at all
for you’ll go to the call
and you’ll fail
and you’ll fall
into love, into life
into death, into hell
for the face of the flesh hides the face of the skull
and a woman is two-faced – the false face, the true face
yes, a woman is two-faced
and so are we all
now the woman who marked me and taught me my soul
was nothing much more than a slip of a girl
whose blood was the tide and whose breath swept the world
or so i believed as i stood at her door
unknown to myself and as cold as a stare
as hot as a fire, as warm as a prayer
and just as i looked at her, knew that i wanted her
knew by the sight of her what i must dare:
there was silk in her skin, there was smoke in her hair
and what i moved in was a thickness of air
full of grace and of sin, full of roses and gin
full of fight and of frenzy and fear.
her breasts were like brands which smoked in my hands
her eyes smoldered thickly, her thighs were a flame
that burned me to fury and pierced me to shame
and i loved the pride in her
the wild night ride in her
the musk scent all over her
as deep and inside of her
i mounted and died in her
swollen and goaded i went . . .
and thought i might never come back . . .
yet when i returned from the black
her eyes were like coals of remembrance of times
that we’ve passed through but never lived in
her aura etheric and thin
as she told me she knew one last sin . . .
then once more she called to me
ensnared me, enthralled me
though all the old glory was spent
and though i could sense her intent
she sang siren songs to me
spun tales of old wrongs to me
and as she called to me
one more time, one last time, i went.
and as she implored me to hear all her story
her face split before me and sent
my sense down into deepest descent
her skin scarred in agony, showing the nag
of a scrofulous aging, the crone and the hag
her flesh grew putrescent
her features all pustulent
rotting away like the plague
revealing the skull and the scrag
and the nail and the powdering bone
of an ancient cadaver serrated from soul
which to myself seemed but my own
without disguise and now framed in my eyes
like a lust which had met its last mate
or a mummy wrapped ancient in fate –
all that remained of our love and our hate
and though i know by the nightwind ten thousand such ties
are loosing and binding in troths and in sighs
unto morning and mourning, both equally lies
to have loved or not loved, all equally dies
and life is the crime, and the criminal time
for the face of the flesh hides the face of the skull
and a woman is two-faced – the lewd face, the bald face
the new face, the old face – the false face, the true face
yes, a woman is two-faced
and so are we all
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