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 skin
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 breathe 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