Animal

Could you so arrantly of earth, so cool,
With course harsh hair and rapid agile pace,
So built to beat boys in a swimming race
Or drive with sheer terns to a salty pool,
So lean, so animally beautiful--
Your breasts look sideways like a heifer's face,
And you stand sometimes with a surly grace
And mutinous blur eye-fires like a bull--
Could you from this most envied poise descend,
Moved by some force in me I know not of,
To mix with me and be to me a woman,
Diana down from heaven could not lend
More ecstasy, or fill my faltering human
Heart's hunger with a more celestial love.

--Max Eastman