An unutterably old lady sits by the fireside alone
It is the middle of winter, snow falls outside
No-one has called on her for months
In her wrinkled hand a photograph

The girl is smiling, she was always so happy
The lustrous dark hair tumbles about her shoulders
So shiny those curls, she must surely have just washed it?
Eyes bright with the hopes and dreams of youth
Hers, the prettiest visage God ever contemplated

Perched coquettishly on the swing
Something in the pose reveals the chrysalis within
Not yet adult, her childhood fills its last valise
Preparing to depart with all its beloved possessions
Maybe to prepare for a new owner not yet born

Girlish tease, flirtatious promise
Both are present in that sweet expression,
flared hips and those curved delights beneath her uniform...
Virginity radiates from her uncomplicated youth
As sure as breath issues from between those full lips
That soon will rake the passions of so many young men
Just one of whom will claim the prize
And spend his life in praise of being born

Yet sixteen summers had passed that day
She remembered her father seated on the fallen log
As he framed her image in the viewfinder
Could he have known how much she loved him?
How much she needed him?
It was her father that she smiled for
He that she had wanted, he for whom she could never admit
to having such unnatural thoughts and desires

The girl on the swing smiles for the camera

In another time and another place, an unutterably old lady cries ... for probably the last time

Appears courtesy of “The Best of Peter Pan”

https://bookapy.com/s/292/the-best-of-peter-pan