A/N: I am not a poet. So when my Language Arts teacher assigned my class to write a sestina, suffice to say I was not a happy camper. After two extremely disastrous excuses for poems, I came up with one mildly disastrous one . . . one in which I had allowed myself to secretly write about my favorite barber and baker.

Anyway, as I've said, poetry isn't really my forte, but since I don't absolutely abhor this, and since it's been far too long since I've updated, I thought I'd share it with you guys. I hope you find it tolerable. ;]

Prompt nineteen: red.

He paces

across the room like a caged tiger,

muscles coiled, volatile, ready. As he prowls he looks out his window

and sees her red

hair flying as she moves around outside, tresses liberated from their bun, curls caught in a dance.

One lock dangles between her eyes to press upon her forehead a kiss.

x

An hour later finds he and she in the same room. She reaches out to rest a kiss

upon his lips but he paces

away. They stand in opposite corners, a silent and still dance.

She tries to call him back to her and the hairs on his neck bristle like an angry tiger.

She stands where the sunlight from the glass panes cannot reach. Her red

hair looks muddy in the shadows. He returns to his window.

x

He looks out his window

and does not look at her. Her kiss

falls into the air, then she leaves him be. Her errant red

hair paces

across the back of her neck as she exits and he growls like a tiger

to himself: In solitude, he cannot dance.

x

To desire and fear all at once only seems strange to those who do not know how. To dance

with what all at once destroys you and keeps you alive is endless warfare. Through the window

he does not see her and he digs his fingers into the wall and claws like a tiger

at the wood. Her kiss

of spices and smoke and love floats, unclaimed, in the air, and he paces

through the room as his vision blurs with dots of red.

x

Elsewhere in the home, her red

locks twist and escape from their bun. Her curls dance

as she paces

through the home, cleaning, cooking, wiping, sweeping, doing, being, breathing, anything to avoid his window

and his eyes and his kiss

that he will not take. She refuses to stop a moment for rest and respite as would a tiger.

x

He feasts his eyes upon what lies outside, like a tiger

would feast its eyes upon its prey, yet his carcass is a bare skeleton. He growls and sees red

curls kiss

a waiting canvass of skin, yet it is all in his mind. He refuses to dance

but he despises to be still, looking out the window

when there is nothing to see, if ever there was anything to see. He rips his hands from the wall and away he paces.

x

He prowls into her room like a caged tiger and she stops all her movement. The dance

of her red curls across the back of her neck and her forehead ends. He crosses to her. His window

lies far behind him. He rests upon her lips a kiss, then paces away.

A/N: Reviews are love.