A Sonnet for Cynics for Valentine’s Day

*

The Cynic speaks of Love; What lie is this

But lust dressed up in silky swathes of lace

In pretty words, and promises of bliss

Come pouting in her petticoats, her face

All flushed with rouge and scarlet on a smile

With kohl around her cold come-hither eyes

Come lie with me, my love, a little while

She’ll say, and pat the bed, and part her thighs

And flash her stocking tops gone all awry

And secret places oh so sweetly blessed

And you’ll believe, the Cynic said, as I

Who once was by her magic so possessed

In Love, when she is nothing but a whore

That’s forty quid, she said, and that’s the door

*

© Gail Foster 14^th February 2018