A Princess of the Empire

The job of royalty, of course, is theater:

it mandates the performance of interminable

charm and practiced waves and subtle wiles

and graceful smiles – all tastefully informed,

of course, by more varieties of politesse

than could be guessed at by whom you would

never publicly address, but secretly would sigh

to think of as the least known life of all to you:

The Commoner. Oh! – so much less common

were your few fleet, secret intimacies – so rare

they did not number, over all the thirty-seven

years you’d taken and sustained the dare

to live as the display of “Princess of the Empire” –

more than ten. Which in a flash just now became

eleven. Some reflex shocked you into lifting up

your hand to wave, not royally, but like the shyest

little maiden at someone who’d waved at you –

who, just before he’d turned to leave the gilded

Public Room had in a lover’s private catch

that stopped your breath looked back at you –

full of the ardor of his quick discovery that you

were fragile and accessible and beautiful – oh,

how he seemed to you to fit! And that, as usual,

was it. There was nothing you could do with it.

.