Cleopatra herself in all her glory
couldn’t look as good I did
done up in all my finery
for an assignation with you.
Maybe I was in denial
but there’s something about an affair
that apart from feeling horny
makes you Queen-like
and so beautiful you love yourself just looking.
The noise your skin makes shining
drowns out the crickets
rivals the fireflies
goes out into the world singing
like a pissed fly and if coconuts
fell on your head you wouldn’t notice
just keep on walking with that stupid smile on your face
and a heart banging away like a djembe.
I’m dreaming here, wondering
which lover am I thinking about
was it the one who met me at the station
with the bike, knowing
I’d mentioned how much I’d liked
riding on the crossbar, my head
tucked in nicely against the chest
of some Old Spiced boy?
It could even be the hots I got
for a woman once, driving along
some moon-lit road
but that couldn’t last, that was some
different kind of loving
and I’m nothing without my lippy.
Or it could be you, my current bun
my liver-spotted Die Hard 10
the lover for whom my beauty ripened
like a pomegranate, and all the ugly bits
I’d covered up matured all of a sudden
like vines ripened on the Bosporus.
Cleo, you had nothing on me then.
