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 breath

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