Maggie
She isn't beautiful as Nefertiti was.
And unlike Helen,
her face will never launch a thousand ships.
My Maggie's beauty is more open, than entrancing
more welcoming, than enthralling,
more giving, than demanding,
more durable, than perfect.
Perfection inspires no passion,
no lust.
Nefertiti over Maggie?
Maggie, with her woman's body?
Maggie, with flesh where woman should have flesh?
Maggie, with fullness where love and longing
would suffer nothing else?
Yet she strews a careless beauty all about her,
the tender beauty in her gaze
that holds and softens and moulds
a better man within me
than the one that she first knew,
and the bold, brave beauty of her crooked smile,
her smile that tells me who she is,
and who she does not care to be.
Her smile may never softly kill a single soul
but it warms me, softly warms me
as I hold her spent and gentle body close to mine
it warms me to dream dreams beyond my worth
and aspire beyond my dreams.
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