Beauty is a Compromise by Retta Lewis

Her beauty is a compromise;
At the heart of assimilation
You find this knife in her face
Cutting away the doubts.

Her reality hangs
By the heels,
And by the neck;
From the trees of nations,
And the ropes of men.

Her life is a tangle of limbs--
A classic decoration of parts--
Swinging among the leaves.

Her future is bound
By the aberrations of its present,
And the madness of its past.
Death looms larger than life,
And the living move slower than the dead.


*Originnally published in Children, Churches, and Daddies (CC&D) 2018

About the Poet:

Retta Lewis has been published in Caveat Lector, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, and CC&D.  Also, three of her poems are to be published in an upcoming issue of Rigorous.  Past work from years ago appeared in:  Onionhead, Wide Open Magazine, Free Focus, and Up Against the Wall, Mother.  She works in a field devoted to the prevention of Domestic Violence.