She

She hangs like a pendant bead
against a neck of crumpled skin.
And catches the light, warping it
and finishing it to strange beauty.
In the heart of the heart
is light itself. A place
where life animates life
and nothing knows where it begins.

She is an heirloom, a longingless glass.
Long ago broken by a man's hands.
It is an undertaking she wishes
she'd done alone.

Pendulous beauty, pretty but cold
I may as well be dead, she says
but glitters on into the next day
as the untouchable bauble we want her to be.