Galatea

I've got atrocious table manners. When
I bite into a peach the juice gives my chin
a sticky gilding. I throw laundry on chairs,
track dust out of your studio, grow teary-eyed
over alley-cats. Mornings, my face is raw pink
and my hair a rats' nest. The first time 
we made love, I sweated and cried
and bled. A mortal. A disappointment.
You shrank into the other side of the bed,

forgetting for the moment that I could hear
every  curse and plea you raised to the gods,
from Damn you! to Why didn't you tell me
it would be like this? Later, after I'd dropped off,
you shook me awake and stood me
on my old dais, trying to mold my sleepy limbs
back into the form they held in marble.
I crumpled,

no human can hold that pose for long.

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