What Galatea Said
by Theodora Goss

You made me,
breast and thigh, the curves
of my belly. Out of marble
you selected yourself
from a quarry in the mountains
outside the city of Carrara, the color
of bleached linen or the surface
of the full moon. You carved
the lines of my jaw, the lenses
of my eyes, the waves
of my hair tumbling
down down down
to the tops of my buttocks.

And now,
unsatisfied, you want
to amend your own creation.
My dear Pygmalion,
having begged the implacable
Aphrodite for my life,
marble to woman, I’m afraid
you will have to live
with imperfection.

(The image is Pygmalion and Galatea by Ernest Normand.)