Like the mottled cream spots on the mother deer’s hide,
So do eventide dreams paint the back of my mind
When my eyes flutter shut in twilight’s embrace,
‘Tis in that quiet hour when I glimpse of her face.

She warms at my touch yet she says not a word,
A renaissance portrait, always seen but ne’er heard,
Akin to the moon is the glow of her face,
As soft as the meadow, as dainty as lace.

The curve of her hip and the plush of her thigh,
Her faultlessness haunts me as midnight grows nigh,
Through Sicily’s temples and halls painted red,
Through Scotland’s dark castles and streets she has tread.

Ambition flows through her like blood to the heart,
The world and its travelers all drawn to her art
Like bees to their honey or moths to the flame,
All beauty-starved people have whispered her name.

But as dawn starts her quest towards the brightening sky,
Her silhouette shatters as night says “Good-bye.”
I plead to my mirror that her face there I see,
But I am not her,
And she still is not me.