Paean

She’s striking.

Her skin, preternaturally smooth, clear, and pale.

Her cheekbones, vertiginous, so high that her cheeks rise like sheer cliffs from her jaw.

Her nose is pert, small, and her lips are painted crimson, exquisitely applied lipstick tracing her wide, pretty smile perfectly and contrasting sharply with her teeth (brilliant and white, straight, but just far enough from perfection to be captivating).

Her eyes are big, and in the soft light, I would guess they are brown, but I don’t know for sure. She’s too close for me to learn definitively without being creepy (or without being creepier than I already am, writing this paean in my little notebook, not three feet from her, and then nearly silently – though not, to my horror, near enough to silence – dictating it into my phone).

Her left ear has one more silver hoop earring than does mine.

Her perfect B-cup breasts give shape to her three-quarter-length-sleeved ribbed white top.

Her hips, just discernible in the darkness beneath the bar, flare out in multicolored striped hip-huggers, and her long legs end in stylish three-inch heeled white leather boots.

Thank God for the mirror behind the bar. It lets me stare, almost unobtrusively, at her spectacular face.