A woman's beauty
is in the flickering
essence of her
heart,
like the virtuosity
of De La Tour
her face is fading,
yes,
she is beautiful
but against the odds
I am enraptured
over what she told me
more than her lips,
hips,
and
finger tips.

I will forget her face
that's part of a controlled burn,
but I cannot
control how much
fire
will remain
as a result of her thoughts
and how they engulfed what was
hackingly breathing inside my ribs
when they burned me.