A Different Kind of Beautiful

I want to be the kind of beautiful that stops you walking
The kind that makes you look
Again
The kind that wraps across genders and across times -
A photograph from today
Or from 1945:
Femme fatale and "missed connection"

I want to be the kind of beautiful that is enough.
That is intellectual, and glasses wearing,
And looking graceful in a skirt
Or a suit and jacket,
The kind you dunked her pigtails in your ink well
And you wore suspenders for her: special...

I want to be the kind of beautiful that gets you to turn away from your work station
The kind that ends up in your writing
The kind that makes you tap the typewriter keys harder just thinking...
A waft of pipe smoke, forest green, running through a sweaty summer,
Taking a dive off a cliff you didn't see coming -

I want to be the kind of beautiful that lights up your eyes
That makes you want to spin me around in a circle,
Flow through a New York City fountain
Hold my hand running across Patton Avenue
Something you wouldn't do again - you never thought you'd do this time:
Magical and superheroic,
Subterranean and foreign,
Like chocolate cake without icing but it doesn't matter it's so. dang. delicious...
You never want to leave it...

The kind you kiss under streetlights.
The kind you keep.
The kind you keep because you can't imagine better,
And you don't keep trying
Because you don't want to
Because when you have something beautiful
You might want to hang onto it
You might want to
Stop time
You might want to let yourself
Interlock your fingers
Just this time
Just this one time

Just this one time.
Just once.