In town for tea and English rain
I am snared by your portrait
on the mezzanine.
Hanging in history for the world to see
preserved perfectly.

Jade eyes in flawless skin
censure my perfidy and scorn
pursuit of ageless prime.
I thought I’d won the Faustian game,
wagered your love. Yet here

sheltered from the precipitation of time,
fine scars of decay, brushed
by Warhol trump my thinning hair.
Gifted to a nation, a body offered me
which I took unappreciatively.

Painted lips that once kissed me,
hanging next to Hockney.

Joan Collins (1933-  )

In 1959, Collins was engaged to marry Warren Beatty, four years her junior. The relationship ended after 18 months. Beatty had a series of  affairs with some of the most beautiful women in the world until he finally married 33 years later. In 1985, Andy Warhol produced a silkscreen print of Collins which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, London.