The Restaurant Owner's Wife

It's easy to imagine:
That straight back, on a horse,the shoulders tense,her sword held aloft, gleaming silver in a winter sun.
The world is a carpet of snow.
The jet black hair lifts slightly in the wind, softening the implacable line of her jaw.
One cannot imagine those marble lips smiling.
The horse stamps impatiently. The black eyes glitter.
Men have laid kingdoms waste for the ruinous beauty of her face.

I wonder if he knows this, the jolly little man who offers us free cigarettes, and occasionally, free food- a bad idea, maybe, since this is his livelihood.
She places a bowl of steaming noodle soup on the dirty plastic cover; her fingers long and delicate, the tips slightly calloused.
The cutlery is cheap, the food is delicious. A minion is shirking, and she snaps.
Her voice is the winter wind, and her eyes the bottomless depth of a well.
I wonder if he knows.