Gypsy Queen Poem by Rachael Swiss

Stray hairs fall casually across her forehead
Flirting with doe-eyes
Coy and fetal wrapped as eyelashes are
Breath is gauze with some shimmer to it
She steps lively
Laughing and tinkling with bells on her feet
The gypsy queen she owns the earth
Anticipating her footfalls the sidewalk heaves to greet her
Thrusting upward impatiently
Her soles are hardened but her soul is harder
She loves and she roams while love stays
And home is where the heart lies
Exploding within her breast
So feverish you could catch a chill
And it beats to the beat while blood loops
Circular and gyrating while hands clap so she curtsies
Hips roll in figure eights dancing toward an infinite ellipsis
Sometimes beauty is so objective the blind man sees
No jewels adorn her slender fingers
Smirking and smug to fickle crowds not a suitor in the lot
Crying in bathroom stalls alone panties to her knees
Disinfected and disenchanted but enchanting all the same
Happy just isn’t in her cards
Her smile lights up the days of strangers who stop to tell her so
Regret a phantom distorting dainty facial features
Countenance feigning naïveté but too sincere to tell a bold-faced lie
The wind shakes down dusty cobwebs coating tear ducts dry from years of abuse
The wind rustles through her skirts a lecherous hand strumming ancient battle hymns between her thighs
The wind messes up her hair and nobody knows that the elegant universe nearly ended in a moment
With the displacement of a curl from the head of a gypsy queen.