‘Relegated’

When she was thirty-five,

she still looked

like the pampered young

Egyptian dancing girl.

She had always

had the shelter

of many arms.

Now, the first signs

start showing

in the mirror,

before she could

accomplish her

erotic development.

She was forty-five.

She realized,

the desirability losing

long before the desire.

She felt amputated,

also mortified

to insist men;

should they refuse

to acknowledge?

She felt like

a neglected O.A.P.,

like some other

wrinkled women

clinging to love.

She hated her age,

her sex.

She now lies in her

virgin bed,

dreaming about

the city life,

in a melodrama.

She looked at the door,

if someone has come

with her pension,

but she could not yet,

surrender the desire.

She recounted

her sizzling affairs.

No men now,

for dignity, she thought.

She was a relegated woman,

relegated for her age,

relegated on sex,

relegated to the men.

She was relegated.

Marriage was not her choice,

she had the refuge of vanity.

But, now that is despised

and, when I enlivened

the fact of

her still existing beauty,

she came to my arms,

now relegated and,

with no pride.