The Three Perfumes.
Tall and cadaverous.
Ephemeral and fey.
Three Lambs of Innocence
or Vanities of Night?
Red…her cloth of flowing blood
speaks of a lust
… a fertile inner life.
Or is she death?
Delicate, she flows down into Blue…
Who… proud and arrogant…
sniffs at the far-off skies,
Aloft…adrift.
Anaemic…untainted by carnality…
White is chastity.
A silent symbol of some female purity,
that does not exist?
Are they the Fates?
Or is the purpose of their stance
To emanate aromas so divine,
they'll lure each passing cavalier
into their honied barren wombs,
To play the game of chance.?
Kristine Byrne. Spring 2019.
The Three Perfumes by Margaret McDonald.