After Forty

It might be vanity            or it might be the beginning       of loss

the trickle before the flood the drip-drip of an iceberg’s first spring melt a few splattering droplets on your forehead before the downpour petals scattered below the vase limp and curling  browned at the edges                                                     It might be the beginning of the end            of the world’s loving you

Before            you would walk the streets          a magnet in a dress a candle flame seducing the night        drawing felt and trembling wings you were a firefly at dusk       children chased after you with cupped hands and grass-stained feet

Your beauty was a door                     an entry point to love Multitudes surrounded you      worshipped you at their altars sang your praise in a thousand ballads penned pages upon pages of verse in your honor in its infinite poses      they painted your body on canvases        in ink and oil they ran themselves to exhaustion      jumped and swam and wrestled   with your hourglass in their minds you were some kind of masterpiece your face was a silken flower where electric bees hovered your mouth       a glimmering pool       a cave’s entrance    where divers dreamt of wet depths  you resided at earth's center all turned in your orbit they followed your limbs with their eyes           like tracing a bird across clouds in your belly     you sheltered a gem           that greedy miners         yearned to excavate you possessed the flesh they craved             the nectar for which they thirsted      

Maybe you knew this       or did not

Now        it is a little death as they pass your worn face     on the street without even a glance Today       you listened intently and could almost hear the faint creaking the whisper of wood on carpet     that permanent click of a door closing          in the night