PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

The butcher's new, young apprentice
passes, just at dusk, through the marketplace,
with a small parcel, not worth a theft;
petite in stature, shy in demeanor,
still unfamiliar with the street names; unnoticed
except by some lurking, worldly wags:
"What a beautiful boy," they exclaim
thinking, erect, of sodomy in shadowed alleys.
A few minutes later, in the uppermost
(and the only well appointed) chamber,
rented under an assumed, quite common, name
(the Duke of Clarence, your brother, is not that clever;
sometimes the very obvious escapes him):
in candles' light and silence, both softly soothing,
you observe the slow and deliberate strip-tease---
floppy cap drops from boyish-cut hair, that was once long;
dirty, long-sleeved, oversized shirt peels right off
(the Duke of Clarence, your brother, cannot suspect this);
baggy pants, two inches too long, and worn boots drop away.
Now she stands before you, almost naked, once again,
like the night of the clandestine wedding, just last week.
Almost naked, clad only in silk stockings,
the pair you just bought her, the kind you like her to wear:
adorned, now, only in her desire for you,
she beckons you to her fiercely impatient embrace,
and all the night's hours reserved for sensual pleasure:

Lady Anne Neville,
the Earl of Warwick's daughter.
 
Starward
 
[jlc]