The Lady of Shalott she certainly was not.

“Out of the night that covers me ….” I wonder if William Ernest Henley once happened on her great grandmother and drew ethereally perverted inspiration from eyes yet to be, her great granddaughter’s eyes, umber dark fading to black.

Not likely of course, not likely at all, how could it be. It’s just that his dark night seems so very dark that it brought to mind her soul.

They say that eyes are windows on the soul. A metaphor of course, or at least usually. Her eyes were dark, a dark so dark they might have been black. “Dark as a pit from pole to pole”.

Evil can be eerily beautiful, as deep as the depths of the blackest holes, as dark as the most malicious souls. Like one I once loved, or thought I loved, a soul reflected in dusky eyes set in russet bounded ivory.

Out of the night that covered me, with feigned embraces and contrived smiles she seemed to float, sensually undulating, teasing; daring me to forget, some other night when she’d long left. A succubus of sorts, she walked in beauty like the night and sought my soul to take.

The Lady of Shalott she certainly was not.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2017; all rights reserved. Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.