a deafening batting of lashes

Love is a hovering, a deafening
batting of lashes. It presses

its lips to the opaque
blotting paper before breaking
and entering--a vision

suspended in moonlight, a museum

piece, a nude

summer hue. Love's petal-
starched dresses rustle in the under-
brush; its white cotton gloves

erase their own incriminating
traces. A lady

keeps her suitor guessing.

No matter the apparatus:
a handbag, a snifter, a pinch
in his drink,

a cinch

at the waist, an intellectual trimmed
like a smart pillbox hat.
A lady proposes

a dangerous abetting
and proves her authenticity
by how easily

she bruises. Love is a cut-
up, a close-up,

a hovering.
This kiss is exquisitely
scripted and its twin

is terror.

[Angela Shaw, 'Rear Window' from New Young American Poets {ed. by Kevin Prufer}]