I have seen a lady, the same lady, Waiting for the train this past week, And she has cast a thrall over me. Somewhere between the easing into the beginning, The hectics and tiredness of the middle, Then the final fading toward a relief strewn ending, She captured me. Grabbed a hold, Squeezing me close between her ample bosom, While her daily life in tattered streamers, Have snapped at my hearing, singing her song. You see, she is obese, there is no other word to describe her. She is not portly, or overweight, or fat, She is obese. With the full roundness of her condition. You can always hear her approaching a mile away, Her breath rattling from the depths of her core, A slow chug, chug wheeze. Her body moves with a drunken gait, Rolling from one side and then to the other, As if balanced by some crazy hand on uneven springs, And always there is the accompanying tattoo, A faint shuffle scuff of her eminently practical flat-soled shoes. Every morning she moves slowly down the platform, At a long practiced speed, head cast down, Eyes studying the ground with a leper passion, She never looks up, ever. Not until she turns to face, Where the train will pull up, allowed, for until it does, Only distance stares back, with its bending kisses. I was the same as everyone else when I first saw her, Disgustedly fascinated, the overriding deep desire, Like some dark quartz vein of the soul, To stare and study, of course, As long as nobody knows you are doing such things. For she was pity seasoned with contempt to me, Amusement chipped from self discipline, And overall relief laced with a need to get away, For it could be catching, whatever it was. But this was all before the thrall, you see, Cast in the most of innocent of ways, As these things usually are, the faint flutter of a neck scarf, Caught in the morning breeze. I saw it that first day, in the intensity of appearing not to stare, Tied ever so carefully around a neck dissolving into its body, Couldn't help but notice how vivid in color it was, so perfectly matching, contrasting the endemic blandness of her 'big' clothes. It scratched me that pretty scarf, for the rest of the day. And so it continued, The next and the next day after, each with it own scarf, Supping at my well of being, when it had barely been fingerprinted before. And then on the Friday a new scarf, perfectly tied again, But this time, carefully nestled in its centre, a broach, Wrapping the folds and holding it all together, In its own small way beautiful, beautiful as anything I have ever seen. I had given up any pretence of not staring now and as I watched, Her thick white fingers moved up and caressed that broach, Dancing sideways, in a loving fashion, To run up and down the scarfs material, And it made sense momentarily, the thrall, For it was not a scarf, But shadows of personality she was wearing, In plain view of a world which had only invited her to the party, So that she might be mocked and laughed at. Locked behind so many walls, That desire to wear something beautiful, to feel its tendril effect, Fainter than butterfly gravity though it may be, When ugliness and horror was all anyone else chose to see. It was an immeasurably sad realisation, For I knew it was a whimper, a bare flicker of the rainbow, In a landscape of individual screams. But I wanted to tell her then, If only I could have found the words, That I heard, I saw, And she was, to me, Beautiful.
Reason for writing:
I just wanted to capture her beauty and share it with others
in my own small way....
Birth sign: Virgo
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