Ass

for David

My Michelangelo!

What Bernini could compare?

Could the Borghese estate compete?

Could the Medici’s famed aesthete

produce as excellent and sweet

as this famous derriere.

Did I say derriere?

Derriere too dainty.

Buttocks much too bawdy.

Cheeks so childishly petite.

Buns, impudently funny.

Rear end smacking of collision.

Ah, misnomered beauty.

Long-suffering

butt of jokes,

object of derision.

Pomegranate and apple

hath not such tempting

allure to me

as your hypnotic

anatomy.

Then

am I victim

of your spell,

bound since mine eyes

did first espy

that paradise of symmetry.

And like Pygmalion transfixed,

who sincere believed

desire could unfix

that alabaster chastity,

grieved the enchantment

of those small cruel hips—

those hard twin bones—

that house such enormous

happiness.