Poetry Mini-Challenge...Poem Three

Cassandra
by Christina Hile

I'm a premonition,
she says
and lowers her eyes,
heavy with black mascara,
thin veins
of eyeliner, melting
in the summer heat,
travel down her cheeks.

A premonition of what?

She sighs,
Dead crops,
ship wreck,
pestilence,
does it really matter?
Her ankles
are the color of sand
beneath the tight crisscross
of black sandal straps.

It matters,
but she tilts
her head
and the red dye
of her hair
glows like the bloom
of blood
under surgical lights,
the taste of iron
on my tongue
is her,
all her.