The caress of wine like blood trickling
over crystal rim onto bare forearm,

skin so unflawed ivory
yet humility feigns indifference

to the

mirror, mirror on the wall—

and the fairest of them all

whom you have yet to prey upon,

impervious to your charms;
seemingly…
no tool of fickle fancy…

slender wrists and a throat bound in velvet

and you are picturing your hands lingering,
gruff and callused though they may be,
on the scallop of that collarbone

so austerely revealed and sharp as a knife.

and her eyes are green like hers were

like envy for the lost

and her lips are red like violence

like a vendetta

you can finally make good on.