she is skin the color of rich, dark wine—
and is similarly passed from hand to hand;
she takes her body,
paints it beautiful colors,
and shares it among countless others;
traveling like a disease, perhaps, or an epidemic—
an illness, a plague
that is thoroughly unholy
yet somehow thrilling.
she crosses paseos in the night,
casting lures of whispered words
searching for promises, for pleasures,
for crumpled bills
and cold
hard
coins.
like a deadly fever tinged with a euphoria
that obliterates whatever pain it first elicits.
so when she comes to you—
be she awash with alien scents
or stained with the touches of a thousand men—
she will have done no wrong
and you shall not deny her.