Lips to die for

Come, caress me, lips of carmine red.

True red, deep red, colour of blood.

Lips of passion, lips of dread,

Plush petals seeking food.

As we join, yet part,

Consume my all.

Take, now, this

Offered

Throat

Do you recognise those lips? Take a closer look at the enlarged detail above. See the little facial hairs around the mouth, the highlights on the lips, balancing out the voluptuous reds? Can you see window reflected on the pearly white of the teeth? The morning sunlight in that reflection? This is not a photograph but a painting. Recognise it?

Here is the painting shown in less detail and lower resolution:

Recognise the lips now?

This poem is republished from 2024. Why?

1. I like it,

2. I wanted a chance to talk about the painting, and

3. I am republishing lots of stuff that got lost when a Vocal employee deleted my account, I am told, in error. Thankfully, the work was safe, the account has been restored, and I had the choice of posting up all of my work in one go, or republishing my (700+) stories, one-by-one. I chose the latter course because, if I had published the whole lot in one go, it would have included 100+ unfinished stories that were in draft at the time of the deletion. I also figured this would be a good way to do some weeding. I hope this explains why you will see a lot of "republished from..." in my stories and may even recognise one or two of them. Apologies if you follow a link to a story that is not there.

Thanks for reading