The Young Coquette
What do I call that young coquette?
My shadow self; my silhouette.
Those clothes, that hair, a cigarette.
The joie de vivre; the vain regret.
What sort of pithy epithet
will she recall, lest I forget?
Perhaps, instead a sobriquet
for who I was back in the day.
But what would she wish to portray?
Somewhat naive, a bit risqué?
A wounded child or power play?
“All that and more!” is what she’d say.
That girl who played a victim game
(though she would make the counter-claim).
A femme fatale; a wild flame.
A spirit not a soul could tame.
Both full of pride and full of shame,
all contradiction just the same.
It all feels now as but a dream,
that martyr of her own regime.
A fog of war; a distant scream.
An echo of one’s disesteem.
A soldier who would self-redeem
and break her shackles at the seam.
Now when she comes to mind I smile,
recalling each and every mile
we marched and fought in rank and file.
We failed, we wailed, we shed the guile
to wake and heal and reconcile
a misspent youth and life worthwhile.
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