by Kallima Hamilton
The fretful concubine
Said, "Phooey! Phoo!"
--Wallace Stevens, "Anything Is Beautiful if You Say It Is"
Don't call me Dulcinea--the neighbors mock your sweetness
and already I'm the envy
of every girl in the Cathouse.
You make me blush,
intoxicant with your voice
like fine French chocolate. Charge windmills for me
(I will be your blonde envoy).
You slay the giants
and slake the thirst of dry old maidens.
Red-brick roofs grow hot;
I swelter under pomegranate skies.
Douse me with chivalry, that
green romance,
noble knight. Craze me
at midnight with the dulcet petty (pretty!) lies
of misperception: anything is beautiful if you say it is.
We live in a transformative time.
Kiss me & I shape-shift
into gold Sheba, cream-skinned and balmy with love.
There's truth in the power of the spoken word:
touch me and I'm a she-Lazarus inside the reddened rose,
inside the dewy body of the dawn.
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