Pat Jones

Only Skin Deep

by Geoff Le Pard

The azure of the wide Pacific seas
Has depth, unlike your bland insipid eyes.
A dancer’s legs are shaped by art to please
But yours are not for show, they need disguise.
My tongue, whose form can change to suit all tastes,
From gentle probe to pert, priapic beast,
Becomes a dry and flaccid thing, all chaste,
If suffocated by your doggy breath’s release.
Facial engineers, who can craft Kate Moss
From Quasimodo, turn and run a mile:
I’d give my soul to Satan, bear any loss
If they’d mould Venus from your Cubist smile.
Let’s face it, love, on me you’ve placed a hex:
It’s not your looks that bind us, just the sex.

Geoff Le Pard is 52, married with two children. He is a solicitor working for a major London law firm and has taken to writing poetry in the last two years. This is his first published poem.