Anna Kirk

Veils in parade, each clutching rosary beads,
Rubbed between fingers like strings of pomegranate seeds.
Secret sins sighed in turn for each juicy pip,
And from the steady flow of blood they are obliged to sip.
Bruised berry eyes look up towards the glass
Stained with fragile colours and what may come to pass.
Famous bluestockings posed in the guise of nine muses
Sing of Woman and being whomever she chooses.
To spark-struck mortals they send their sign,
Showing threads of life unravel, tangle, intertwine.
Both chocolates and kisses are exchanged by flush-faced girls,
Rose creams and violet creams and hazelnut whirls.
The lipstick prints left hanging in the air beside rouged cheeks
Linger like faint perfume of female mystique.
Beneath these sugared gestures and observations of formality
Lies a dormant yearning – a wish for highbrow immorality.
A girl that hides this wish is like tobacco flower;
At first mere musky beauty, yet core dark with smoky power.
Mata Hari dances wild, in her robes of gypsy russet.
Men glimpse flashes of gold, flashes of gusset.
A raw response to music, feral, stormy, free,
Raised by wolves in woodlands, beneath the stars, amid trees.
The decorated mime artist, with cuffs and collar frilly,
Deeply downs champagne from the trumpet of a lily.
Takes her panther for a stroll along the back streets of Vienna,
Whilst flipping coins to buskers; vibrato echoes of a tenor
Curl like wisps of smoke from home-rolled cigarettes.
The choking hot air smothers the kid-glove and tiara set,
Who discuss, in one breath, politics, the opera, and ‘the poor’,
Popping into painted mouths proffered marzipan petit fours.
They laugh at others en francais, monsieur et mademoiselle,
Judging if each debutante resembles bête ou belle.
The party is invaded, by barbarians vain and louche,
Starved for entertainment, guzzling amuse bouche.
They swing across the heavens, descend like dandelion down,
Softly floating in slow spirals, tickling away frowns.
Twisting and transforming to shapes less akin to sin,
Savage metamorphosis of dark scowls into grins.

And the once-tight clutches loosen from around the rosary beads
So the fingers of the veiled parade need no longer bleed.