There are very many beautiful women
that I will never know
and very few beautiful women
that I will, but they never
stay long, seeing quickly how
low I am beneath them.
There are also some who are not
as beautiful and I will know them
equally as well,
if not better than the others.

More often than not there are more
of those than any other kind,
for I am ugly and luck
is often bitter toward me,
if not at least fair.

The ones I do not know
are always more beautiful
than the ones that I do.
Sometimes it saddens
me to think of things of
which I will never know;
the beautiful women
or the touch of the moon or the
pale white beaches of Greece.

More often than not I avoid
thinking on such things for long,
if at all, and I can
be content with my few,
fleeting beautiful women,
--who come to me when
luck has made a mistake
and leave again when it
is corrected--
and the few others who
are more like me
and can accept me as
their own.