Figure of Enchantment

She wears red feathers but white ones on feast days and on her birthday scales. Her fingers have claws and black talons for shoplifting. When she swims she grows fins and on the verge of drowning gills. In her rump she hides a sting for any man who crosses her, but the stinging tastes of honey just before it hurts. The feathers she wears are as red as her hair and when anybody plucks them she shrieks as if winning a prize. Her annual ovulations bring the kids out on the streets, maidens waving bunches of mimosa and square-bashing boys with badges and berets. By night she hides from headlights as if running from the law. When it snows she weeps for all mankind (a colander) incontinently, out of earshot. Those who fall in love with her fall out again with broken hearts and grazed extremities. Nobody comes close.

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