Fundamental vanity creeps panther-like, her shadows
     ascendant, all zodiacal, turning up terrace stairs,
     drawing strangers’ looks like Venetian blinds as her eyes flirt
     their azure flitter, littering soft-filtered light in waves
     oceans of sighs cannot seize or divide, since fate swims her
     thighs, calling in debtors to sin with her before dawn nears.

Decrepit morning, with fingers so pale, coughs as he nears,
     scaring off all those denial calls back into shadows,
     crawling past a cracked stained glass window, spying in on her
     machinations, despising her lair where fools climb love’s stairs,
     naïvely unaware that she, like damp night, comes in waves,
     devouring men and women—all creatures—with salt she flirts.

Flavours layer on the flesh she wastes a rare taste tongues flirt
     with, fighting each other for the honour, as its hour nears,
     to be in and feast on her, craving what she leaks in waves—
     that sweet death the best-laid hands savour, fingering shadows
     before morning appears, lingering long after downstairs
     to lick up and discuss what fists and mouths have serviced her.

An unsafe forest achers of explorers quest for her,
     not too old, but unfaithful, Felicia Saint-Pierre flirts
     with dangerous precision, her bawdy descent of stairs
     an exercise in cruel confidence tawdry lust nears,
     creaking hard wood as she whispers to her guests’ long shadows
     short curses only former lovers hear, drowning as she waves.

Dismounting her husband, she leaves his party to ride waves
     of hushed castigations she passes by, leading on her
     gawkers by ignoring all that they say, toeing shadows
     not knowing it’s at her feet they lie, praying she will flirt
     with them, exchanging all their jeers for kisses as she nears,
     wading in pools of their own tears at the foot of those stairs.

Going down, she summons me—Biblically—to her stairs,
     flip-fucking Bathsheba and David, sending on airwaves
     in a tone so low only fallen angels hear, she nears—
     calling my sigh into her frequency, those eyes of hers
     a poisonous Mesmer, their azure a hazard she flirts,
     darting lethal glances no one can avert, blue shadows

     drawing into their magic circles, tragic persons her
     perversions bruise and blacken, chosen by augury’s flirt—
     read and torn, she tastes us before throwing us to shadows.