Reflections
I search inside and find your ruddy face
fast ease away but feel you rise and stare
Reflections in the window take your place.
Now news is made of creased and ruined flesh
despoiling freedom, innocence consumed
I search inside and find your ruddy face.
In retro dreams you touch youth through a lens
and I oblige, a child plucked out of time
Reflections in the window take your place.
Those ten familiar fingers preen and groom
and worth is stitched up in a spangled dress
I search inside and find your ruddy face.
Now meet a woman stronger than your guile
so tiptoe not, but should she drop her guard
Reflections in the window take your place.
It’s something in the coat or of the eyes
Not you, but of an age – and one more time
I search inside and find your ruddy face
Reflections in the window take your place.
johnnycrabcakes said,
March 11, 2015 at 2:44 am
There is something about the villanelle that I find very daunting (even having done a number of challenging forms) and I have yet to even attempt one.
Nicely done, Julia. Some lovely language in this.
“Now news is made of creased and ruined flesh”–Fabulous line.
Julia Dean-Richards said,
March 12, 2015 at 10:28 pm
Thank you, Johnny, maybe we gravitate towards the forms that best fit our content or style? The villanelle helps me turn something over to look underneath.
johnnycrabcakes said,
March 12, 2015 at 10:41 pm
Ah, yes–well put. Turning things over to look underneath. Love that.
And I think you’re right. We find the forms that suit us, or perhaps they find us.