Heart critic
reviewing Klimt’s The Kiss
She looked at Klimt’s two lovers in his Kiss.
He had not asked, since he’d assumed she would.
How could their love have been reduced to this,
with nothing said if something’s understood?
She’d not before perceived the passive face,
the shielded eyes, the tightly drawn red lips,
the suffocating power of his embrace,
the futile pawing of her fingertips.
Still trapped in rapture’s paralysing throes
she’s forced to kneel upon the floral mat.
When geometric glitter’s discomposed
the golden image is completely flat.
Beneath the surface thoughts forever masked:
how much she would have liked it – to be asked.
