Old Maid

Old Maid (A Bouts-rimes)

She is the essence of gentility
though her skin looks petrified.
She still carries herself like nobility
though her dreams have been crucified.
She's as thin as the proverbial toothpick.
Her life is a decoupage
of mementoes like the walking stick
from Istanbul or the camouflage
shirt from Desert Storm. Each event, a championship;
each broken heart, a profanity
in the endless search for companionship
that she approaches with such fatality.
Before an altar strewn with idols, she chants an incantation
as much a prayer as a condemnation.