In the garden atrium of the gallery,
I drink red wine with the
striking raven-haired woman.
She laughs with her eyes closed
and I steal glances at the slope of her neck,
her hands, her moist lips.
She pushes her hair back over her ear.
No hoops. No jewels. No distractions.
I’m conscious of my quickened heartbeat.
I ache for something I didn’t
desire even a moment ago,
the moment before I met her.
I’m unsettled by her steady gaze,
feel her retrieving my long-hidden secrets.
I want to resist, avert my eyes, but I cannot.
A stray hair clings to her sleeve,
black shadow against her sunlit jacket. I smile.
“It looks like you’ve lost a feather.”