Your second cousin, an obscure
cigar-maker from Smyrna,
impresses me with tom thumb news
(the words are blunt
and throw a sour limelight).
He regrets the way your eye
gluts on the dancing girls
like an oyster in the head of Bacchus.

But his hands too explore this woman's calf,
his hide lights up
above her loincloth
like a white spark by an epitaph.