Cupid's Bow
I haven’t been happy
enough to dance
since the last time
I did it, 30 years ago
Oh, I’ve danced
with some pretty women
I’ve watched them move
the way they do
You see, I was with a woman
walking drunk
through some woods
Later, we drove home at 35 mph
And that was on the interstate highway
Of course I was going
to leave her alone that night
Until she told me
I wanted to see her panties
And I did
She stood there by the kitchen sink
and peeled down the tops
of her jeans in 1971
They were black and
I don’t like black panties
on a woman
but she was just a girl
God I still tremble
when I say her name
She had a Cupid’s Bow mouth
painted her room in purples and white
But that is not why she
she was so unique
She was a painter
and she was a Catholic
Terry, I have revealed
your name and still no
one knows who you are
standing in the cornfields
He was a good boy
and he loved you in spite of
what happened
You got raped
Then he loved you and left
to go in the army
and he went to Germany
and he bought a sports car for the two of you
It was red like the passion
in the blood running
in your veins
when I kissed you
And then you said, “Yes,”
and then utterly told me “No!”
and then completely turned cold
Love is not a cheap word
It just becomes devalued
It depreciates like a fixed asset
Some invest in gold
Some believe in lead
And it’s in my feet
They won’t lift off the floor
I lose my balance
When I stand on one leg
Girls with Braids -- Wladyslaw T. Benda
A Cupid's bow is the double curve of a human upper lip. The peaks of the bow coincide with the philtral columns, giving a prominent bow appearance to the lip. Cupido (Latin for "desire"), the Roman god of love, had 2 kinds of arrows, one with a sharp gold tip, one with a blunt lead tip. If he shot someone with the gold arrow, that person would be filled with uncontrollable lust, but if the lead one with aversion. (In the 1st century Publius Ovidius Naso related that Apollo mocked Cupido's archery, whereupon Cupido shot him with a gold arrow and the naiad Daphne with a lead one....) In the 15th century, in the semibiographical "The Kingis Quair," James I of Scotland claimed that Cupido had 3 arrows: gold ones that caused a mild crush, silver ones that caused a more serious infatuation, and steel ones that caused a love-wound that never healed:
ReplyDeleteAnd with the first that hedit is of gold
He smytis soft and that has esy cure;
The secund was of silver, mony fold
Wers than the first and harder aventure;
The thrid of stele is schot without recure.