She, Mona Lisa.

Do you smile
Or do they know?

Those very many years ago
These brushstrokes made with expert hand
Tell they your tale? Did they portend-

The hundred thousand flashing lights
Machine mutters, day and night
A life behind the polished glass
Prostitute’s cell, and sell you must.

Da Vinci’s, or so they say
A woman owned, your story clay
Shaped and molded to their taste
Da Vinci’s whore, he sold your face

A face the scientists now explore
Eighty percent, maybe more,
What joys and sorrows due to thee,
Joys and sorrows that they see?

All who come will surely trace,
The oft admired meeting place
of lips, sensuously undulate
skywards, or so we speculate:

O Mona that you lived too soon!
Were you a lover, dame or lun?
Patient of syphilis, blood and gore
Give us the dirt, and then some more.

Light the flame of our desire!
Stoke our heart’s coals, make raging fire!
Then like history let us combust
Turn from you and turn to dust.

And when the ashes gently fall,
And the crowd our lives recall,
And silence does reverberate,
Peace and rest facilitate.

In the night when drunk with sleep,
Do those corners softly creep
From their immortal fleshy throne,
Down to life, or death below?

And will you hang stiff in the dark,
The smile from your countenance plucked,
Will your eyes then smile to see
A woman, unsmiling but free?