Color Me BrazenBerry

The lipstick on my dressing table
is my mother. It hovers there,
makes my lips round into an "O."
I mimicked the way she shaped
her mouth when all I had to stain
my skin were summer strawberries.

The lipstick is the overt flirt dressed
in Chinese Red, longing to mambo,
to feel one strong hand placed low
on her hip. She moves her feet in time
with his, steps on his toes with grace.

The lipstick is an arrow to womanhood,
shot with dexterity. When it pierces
a man, he bleeds lust like blood, pleads
to have your Violet X-treme name
smeared in wild streaks below his navel.

The lipstick is a heady stem of wine
raised to engorged lips. Claret, burgundy,
or bordeaux reminds the reformed
alcoholic why he drank. Pour another,
he says, and after that, pour one more.

The lipstick is a knife, turns
flesh from pale to plum. Words
sharpen as they pass over the blade,
too well honed to be ignored.
People listen to a lipsticked mouth.

Lipstick is mother, flirt, arrow, wine,
knife -- a weapon masquerading as a beauty
enhancement product. Armed with a phallus
such as this, the last thing women
should be accused of is penis envy.

The Suitcase

It sits in the closet.
Sometimes I do too.

It has the mien and mood
of old tapestry from Syria,
smells of eucalyptus, the jasmine
of a Zacynthus sea;
orange, the almond blossoms
of a Guadalest evening;
salty, spicy, sweet
cinnamon and coriander
of a Fuerteventura market.
It has never been to any
of those places.
Neither have I.

Packed inside, waiting,
is Cover Girl mascara,
the Stress Less formulation
of Aromafloria body lotion,
three changes of clothing,
and Fitzgerald's nonpareil
novel, "The Great Gatsby."

Tucked in the corner
of one of the pockets
is my sanity.

When I wrap myself
around that bag,
it vows to go nowhere
without me.

The Harlot Visits the Cemetery
('til Death Do Us Part)

A lock of hair lifted by November wind
falls across the cigarette she dangles from her lips.
It strikes her funny. They would have liked seeing
her head go up in flames. They would have said

she was getting her just desserts. If they had known.
But no one knew. There were cigarettes then, too -
afterwards; vintage merlots -before. And a journal
he shared with only her. The same book

she has tucked beneath the leather jacket she wears.
Pictures of his performance on stages in New York.
Leaping lightly from the wooden floor. Dance
itself. Photos of poise suspended in mid-

flight. And personal thoughts he chose to record
before a wife, a lover and a mortgage befuddled him.
She'd stolen nothing but love, so she believed
she had a right to slip the journal from the shelf.
Everyone else at the wake was preoccupied

with the widow, and hams, hugs and flowers.
No one realizes the harlot needs comforting
as well. She couldn't fall to her knees.
She couldn't wail too loud or too long;
had no right to a public display of dramatics.

In the cemetery after everyone has gone,
she falls to her knees, wails too loud, too long,
flogs the freshly mounded earth with her fists.
She needs to pull him from the ground, pound

his skeletal chest, demand to know why
he'd chosen to die as he had lived. The dance
suspended in mid-flight. Those riding past
mistake her for a widow getting her just desserts.

Exhausted, she rolls from her knees to sit
with her back against his headstone for support.
Opens the journal, reads his own intents aloud
to him; lights cigarette after cigarette. Reads until
his virtue freezes solid in a frigid November wind.