(after Théophile Gautier)
Carmen is sleek and slender, with a trace
of gypsy swarthiness around her eyes.
That sinister black hair engulfs her face.
There's something hellish in those slick brown thighs.
When women look at her, they call her plain,
but men surrender reason. Elle divirilise.
The Bishop of Toledo, now, is saying
a Mass for Carmen on stiff, painful knees.
About her amber neck a heavy twine
of thick, black hair coils downward, and it serves,
when she is in her alcove, nude, reclined,
as her voluptuous scarf, enhancing curves.
From that unblemished marble face explodes
the crimson-painted grin of a heartless winner.
behind one ear, her fleshy scarlet rose
has sucked the sap from souls of hopeless sinners.
With that bewitching shape, the morenita
outstrips with ease the pale society beauties.
Internal cruel geysers easily heat her
dark eyes, which force the fallen back to duty.
She has, within that vulgar, cheap allure
some acrid grains, some venomous sharp flecks
from Aphrodite's sea, from which The Whore
once squirmed, to castrate us all with sex.
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