No Ugly Duckling tale, this…

No startling-evolving into the Queen of Swans,

Majestic, on some pond.

No.

This girl will be forever ordinary.

A plain girl, walking the whirling streets of Rome!

Stumbling on the cobble stone.

Where,

(though how they do it, I swear, I’ll never know,)

the rest of them,

The Beauties,

stop the heart, mid-beat,

catch the breath just before the exhale,

so the low, longing, moaning groans of passing men

echo in the narrow, back-alleys of the city.

Fleeting, fetching flashes of long, black-silk hair

tossed like warm shawls on their shoulders,

covering their backs to their waists.

Soft, brown skin from Morocco via Sicily,

just off a boat, a hundred generations ago!

Their asses, sun ripened melons.

Breasts, two warm pillows

to rest a happy mans head upon!

(or a womans, as the case may be)….

Where Sophia’s laughing words,

“Everything you see, I owe to Spaghetti !”

is the Nations mantra!

But!

Be Thou not’a worried for that’a poor, ordinary, Italian girl.

For she smiles, dripping tomato sauce!

She dabs deftly at the corner of her lip,

(and his!)

And then she laughs.

But it’s not a giggle to hide behind her hand .

No!

From deep inside her comes a raucous, infectious roar,

rocking the restaurant!

And when she’s finished,

she sighs,

bends down just enough

to rest her breasts upon the table

for an uninterrupted, Five Mississippi stare-off.

One Mississippi!

Two Mississippi!!

Three Mississippi!!!

Four Mississippi!!!!

(Go ahead! For you? I dare!)

Ahhh…

Five…..

And when she sits back, slowly,

she adjusts her….straps.

And suddenly, it just does not matter!

It fact, it never did!

She knows who she is, and where and with whom and why…

And Marco?

Ha!

He’s a’ smitten beyond repair!!