Lips too warm for lies...

I always say, I always said
If I were grown and free
I’d have a gown of reddest red
As fine as you could see,

To wear out walking, sleek and slow,
Upon a Summer day,
And there’d be one to see me so,
And flip the world away.

And he would be a galant one,
With stars behind his eyes,
And hair like metal in the sun,
And lips too warm for lies.

I always saw us, gay and good,
High honoured in the town.
Now I am grown to womanhood...
I have the silly gown.

Dorothy Parker,"The Red Dress",The Collected Poetry of Dorothy Parker (New York: The Modern Library, 1936)95.

Photo: John Rawlings