A silver siren glinting in the light
Of sunshine melting snow within this
Shallow pool of slush and rain
I trace her cheek
It looks like mine

Why is her gaze so fearful, I suppose
Like me, she feels her skin dissolve
The dust that creeps up from a place inside, to
Choke her slender throat
Like me, she wonders what if beauty stopped
And why the spinning won't
Like me, another raindrop trickles down
For all the dead and all the never-born

So much sunlight wasted on the dirt
A lover never gazed so low, nor
Wished to know the soul of her, wherein
Another beauty lies

So like this siren, I
Must face my end
And though for her, a
Different death awaits
As with heel or pebble
I may watch
In glee, a face explode in froth and filth
Another beauty crumble underfoot

Previously published in 'The New Pleiades Anthology of Poetry' © 2005. ISBN 1-878-431-52-8.

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