Brigitte Bardot

Since you learned to be yourself, playing Eve -
Mere slip of a girl in a garden of nerves - or Circe -
Languishing among the blood's high seas - we feel
We don't deserve you, unless preserved
By dreams and distance on a technicolour reel.

At home in your exile, you may remember when
We felt much the same - the day of the Fall.
I recollect that we took your flesh
In exchange for eternity - but then
We love to be reminded of our God-shaking gall.

Demanding it as a treat - to be gorged
Through ten thousand feet of celluloid
Uncoiling like an umbilical cord.
Re-born, we put you by and stagger forth
To renew our nights of longing, our days of wrath.

Peter Bland.