I know a lady

She’s the devil some say
who will haunt your dreams
and steal away with your youth,
leaving naught but a skeleton
behind.

She’s a muse in winter,
the red of her cheeks
soaked against pale skin,
like the blood spilled from a doe’s heart
so a human can feast.

She is only a child
who follows her whims,
like a vulture circling a carcass
up in the sky, the screeches
bid her eat.

I know a lady
who resembles stone,
cool and closed and hard
some say,
but like stone she’s been hacked
and molded and shaped
by a sculptor’s heartless hand.

11/20/1981