They Call Me

They call me Beautiful these ethnic men of New York City 

We all own these streets, we walk them strongly as immigrants do Each

stride a love letter to our homelands, they recognize my cadence A glimmer

of home in a land so different so far away from the lush greenery From the

salsa, the creole, the harana, the movida, the rasta They see all this in the

swish of my skirt and the supple thigh peeking through there 

They see their sunsets in my smile and smell ocean breezes in my

breath And this, all this in a flash turns them on, and I like it 

They call me Gorgeous, these men and their fancy drinks in the Lower East

side All wielding their weapons on this sultry spring night, it is on 

The wit, the strong brow, the expense account, the accent, the worldliness

How many times have we played this game in our lifetime? And still we play

We all want the same thing after all, crave affection masked by line after line

We all want the same thing after all, ache to be seen in the smokiness of it all

So we give some if it away, some kindness, some truth, something of the heart 

And this is where the spark happens, the hooking up, the possibility of

sex They call me Angel, the ones I take to my bed, these lovers in

progress Games well played, lies well told it is all naked now and bare It

is after the sex that they see the angelic in me, only after the sex It is after

the sex that I see the real man, spent and softened, sweaty He paints

pictures of home on the scar beneath my navel 

I breath fables and folklore into the spaces between his ribs 

It is only after the sex that we can touch each other like so 

It is not for everyone, this honesty, this sweetness that burns

"It is not for everyone, this honesty, this sweetness that burns."