If You Are Lucky

If you are lucky
you will carry one night with you
for the rest of your life,
a night like no other.
You won't see it coming.

Forget the day, the year.
It will arrive uninvoked,
an astrological anomaly.

You will remember
how every cell in your body
knew him, this stranger,

how you held your breath,
the way you searched his face.
This is how such evenings begin.

And you will be real in your skin,
bone and sinew;  the way you always thought
you could be.  Effortlessly.
This is how you will fit together.

His parted lips between your thighs,
your half-lit nipples darkening,
the hot-breathed arrival of desire,
the frenzied coupling
as you opened soundlessly
and the world flooded into you.

In the morning, maybe,
soon after sunrise
you will walk barefoot above a waterfall in the forest,
light-headed with the smell of sex,
laughing in your déshabillée.

You will carry
the music of this memory with you;
and from time to time,
in the small, withered hours,
your body will sing its remembering.

© Michelle McGrane

From A Suitable Girl, published by Pindrop Press 2010

Wine, Women, and Song

I am not a wine snob, for I find beautiful, artsy labels and poetic verse draw me more than my connoisseur French lover fully appreciates.  Nevertheless, he is patient and offers me learning opportunities to hone my skills and taste fine wine....along with fine French cuisine on a fairly regular basis. 

My most recent discovery is a Pinot Noir that had the most enchanting visual of a Goddess of the Earth admiring a bouquet of flowers.  Even more beguiling to me is the verse:

She dwelled on the beauty of life.

Watching the stars, she saw herself running with them.

 

He is most likely rolling his eyes with a big grin on his face, and muttering "no, No, noo", as only Frenchmen can do.  But he adores me and finds me charming for my girlish ways and tender heart.  And he knows I'll put on that impossibly low-cut cocktail dress and the silk stockings with the seam up the back.  And he'll remember the last time we danced together.  And the last time we kissed deeply.

  He knows I dwell on the beauty of life.

She Walks In Beauty

   

She walks in beauty, like the night

 Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

   Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellowed to that tender light

   Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

   Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

   Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

   How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

   So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

   But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

   A heart whose love is innocent!

 

By Lord Byron (George Gordon)