An Emulation of Ovid

What a dog you are
to think that you are clever flesh,
incarnate lust,
seduction on a stick,
and so will have your way with me as easily
as a baby’s lulled to sleep with song.

Ha! You fool! For I know something that
you think you’ve kept from me,
snake sly and secreted away.

Oh yes, I know just where
you’ve laid the traps,
the lures, the cunning snares,
you’ve set, intent to thieve
my will, my strength to choose my ways,
and make me lose and loose myself in you.

For I, behind my veil, have spied, unseen,
where you, you preening thing,
have hidden them – there, there
behind your eyes, along your hands, your lips,
within your voice --
as if a white stone blurred beneath a running stream
or in a winter’s ice
as if a shadow plunged
within a shadow in a shallow arch.

But I, I have my own wild power,
I have dark magics, yes, that you, for all your wiles,
can never overcome.

You’ll be struck dumb, disarmed, undone,
when I, sloe-eyed, lie heated, low,
and cradled in your lap,
my fingers tracing arabesques upon your thighs,
begin to sing to you.