Every Royce model drives up,
slowing, then stopping, letting out
diplomats and officers and dancers alike.
And then bam! there she is:
dainty white feet in slippers of gold,
hanging red dress,
mirroring colours.

Her face is a mask of exotic blurred kohl
and porcelain soft lids
painted serpentine green.
Her long pale fingers are weighed down
by rubies, sapphires, diamonds crimson.
She is from Egypt, the Sierra Leone, Spain, and
London, the most proper of England.

Bulbs flash, anxious to have a black-and-white still,
but her smile is fleeting and runs down the carpet.
Light hands reach toward her and her own extends
from rosebud lips outward, an airy light kiss.
Then soon she is gone over the threshold;
people sigh – she is composed and elegant and
oh! gorgeous, they say, eyes starry and wide.

Inside, the chandeliers are even outshone,
crystalline pearls ‘ppear tarnished,
copper embellishments greening already.
It’s her – so poised, statute -
and good men lose genteel care over bejewelled hands
so they kiss heavily (typically drunkenly),
like brandy, she’s amber.

To the floor, where feet entangle themselves:
she’s the Star and everyone dances, and knows,
as her partner, no one alone, all twirling, all stepping.
A smile has returned and all good men grin,
foolish as sheep, stupid young boys, wanting for
candy too sweet and nothing they’ll get -
she’ll tease and taunt until two.

(by then, they’ll have died of alcohol pois’ning.)