Le Madame

Poem based off an Ivan Albright painting.

Wrinkled skin, sagging
ragged with age
ravaged by fear, and the
countless brutality
of centuries.
Purple satin dress, trimmed with
delicate lace
hangs limp
over bony hips,
hiked over pock
marked legs. Bulging veins
shoot through
sallow skin.
The mirror
in your quivering hand
shatters you as
you apply the rouge to your
cheeks – Red splotches
creasing and caking in age
lines.
Lipstick cracked on a small
tight mouth.
trying so hard to impress—
yourself.
Or the men of a lost era
in their charcoal gray smoking jackets---
watch as they
dissipate in a haze of years
and pale puffs of cigar
smoke.
The prime of your
Beauty, the feel of
warm taut flesh
and butterfly perfume
shrivel
in the endless span of time
spent searching
for empty salvation.