Ass

By Sandra Cisneros
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 collusion.

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.