You Are The Most Beautiful Woman in the World

[dedicated to poor translations of Spanish Love Poems; and…oh yea, to all the women past, live, and yet; and for all the men who idolize them in secret.]

You make me dizzy.
Of course the rules say
I cannot say this.

I become tongue-tied,
lopsided, and when I see you,
slapped by a dozen or so chemicals,
glucose spikes, the flush of endorphins,
crashes of serotonin:
my knees give.

Yes, proper etiquette and
a happy state of affairs
condemn me.

God forbid I tell you
you are the most beautiful woman
I’ve seen in this world.

I’d be lame,
or, if not a liar outright,
plain crazy.

All of this and to top it off, make both of us uncomfortable.

I will not be called crazy though:
since no one believes me.

No one has.

When I ask
they tell me
my confession
makes me
an asshole,
and if I’m right,
many assholes
have beat me
there

Maybe the others
have meant it too

I say

or maybe the world’s blind
and I can legitimately curse her for telling me
I’m not allowed to call you beautiful

I can think the world
is an ugly place,
but there beauty goes,
a walking contradiction to my lie.

“You are the most beautiful woman in the world and so the world cannot be ugly---even if somehow it is more acceptable to call the world ugly than you beautiful.”

but the world forgives me
for calling her ugly.

She has even made some of us heroes for it.

but you blush
and walk away
with a smile
and I never see you again