Sonnet XX*

A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted,
Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;
You look hot, girl.

A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women’s fashion:
Most women are bitches, but you a’ight.

An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Like, you don’t give side eye,

Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
And everything you look at is gold, babe!

A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
Wait, don’t tell me you’re a dude!

Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.
Even a hot-looking one.

And for a woman wert thou first created;
‘Cuz I think you used to be a girl.

Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
So I was out of the running

By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
The minute you got that unit put on …

But since she prick’d thee out for women’s pleasure,
Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure.
But I guess I can still be your woke bae.

*Though Shakespeare would have had no conception of human genetics, he cleverly positioned this sonnet as number 20, or XX – the chromosome pairing of human females.

Wim Leflore is a writer, humorist, and satirist from Honolulu, Hawaii. He prefers to keep it that way.