The Greek Woman

I had supposed all this was closed to me. The age of miracles was long since gone, no wisp of wonder left to dwell upon. I had assumed that I was doomed to be leaf-litter underneath a winter tree, about as in-demand as Prester John, as of-the-moment as the mastodon, all middle age and mediocrity. I ache to watch her putting up her hair, alone before the mirror, unaware: I love the God-sent perfume of her skin, the olive oval of that perfect chin, the way she graces, not just sits upon, a chair. She came, that life-in-earnest should begin.