Share   Print  Save   Become a Fan

Based on the Lawrence Alma-Tadema painting of the same name, 1893

Although she waits,
her love
with silver-tipped fingers
stroking the
pale back of her raised arm,
confidence
sitting serenely on pursed lips,
soon she will
see how foolish she has been
for love.

Clasping flowers in her hand
and in her mind,
her dark eyes fixed on
what might be,
a small finger pressed against
smiling lips
that know no such misery
as betrayal,
but soon,
no pillow shall be soft enough
to cushion her fall from
the heights of love.

He will come,
like the warm summer sunrise,
and he will go,
like the magenta flowers
scattered beneath untravelled feet,
and they will remember
this sound of love departing,
its two-faced head
forever glaring at them
from over its large shoulder,
whispering of
the duality
of
men.