Beautiful Girl (A Reply To Octavio Paz) Poem by Gert Strydom

Beautiful girl staring out of the page
of a magazine, your perfect body
is cast in lovely rounded lines

with a ravishing smile that catches the eye
of most men, how easily did you cast
your web over me, before I turned the page.

Yet I know you in touch and flesh
and have stroked your blonde hair
and at times read the sadness
hidden behind your charm

and know how you battled life
to find a way to care
when intelligence and education
couldn’t pay for raising
the two children that you love.

[References: No More Clichés by Octavio Paz.]