Though your face is sparsely smeared

With the semblance of a beard –

Mind you, not a beard as such –

You do have that female touch.

Your eyebrow line –

Girlishly fine,

Your underarm –

Such maiden charm.

Legs of a child

And undefiled.

As for your thighs,

Their goodly size

Casts nymph-like spells;

Your ears – reminiscent of shells;

Side curls with their lobes entwine

Like the tendrils of a vine

Hanging loose and feminine.

And – you freak! – like jessamine

And like the tuberose

Your carcass stirs the nose.

No sunshine tanned

Your creamy hand,

And your fingers are

Perfect yet bizarre –

Each akin

To its twin;

Your fingers are serpentine,

Glowing skin – mirabelle-fine.

Every nail – a crystal scale.

Darting eye – apt to impale,

Your mouth, framed by fluffy curls,

Is a buckle set with pearls.

As you drink with lips like cherries

From the fountain, it miscarries.

Girls, if they as much as see

You, are prone to pregnancy,

For your eyelid, as it flicks,

Pricks them with three ant-like pricks.

Could have been born of strings and bow,

Or of a reed, or of a roe –

The impregnated concubine

Of some wraith of royal line,

For never could you proceed

From an ordinary breed.

All gone contrary and stray,

Who can tell the miry clay

Squelched at random by the hoof

Of some creature beyond proof,

With a snow-bound teat,

With a mane of sleet,

With ice for a horn,

Of which you were born –

Who could search and understand it?

Nonetheless you’re but a bandit.