For an alternate version, see this piece.

Humbert in Verse (A Love Letter)

By Rebecca L. Morrison

Oh, Dolores…

I’ve become illuminated

by the way your

silken stockings slouch

below the knee and past

mine eyes.

The textile gilding your

slight ankles

imparts a rather

tawdry name.

The books that

rinse your wits of me,

you covet them like

Christmas Day.

I knew you distinctly

once more, once more,

in Junes, Julys

and Augusts

of childhood,

of sand, sun

and greenest seas.

The sweets of your

saccharine lips

unwrap my conscious

and send me

careening.

Dolores, my name now

falls surrendered to my desires,

and my

limbs ache

for the nuanced seduction

in your lisp.

Again, I sin; once more, for you.

You demand little but the dewdrops,

craning a coltish neck

to meet my

weathered chest whilst you

linger

with restless toes and

tea-saucers for eyes.

Once the playground

swings sense stillness,

my tongue climbs my teeth;

my mind unwinds

your ringlets.

You came with the seraphs,

the noblest seraphs,

whose wings were torn

by tangles of thorns.