The air is bronzed around him.
As Donatello's David, his skin
holds its high polish and blinding
halations of cool fire.
My little warrior,
he stands in the easy elegance of infancy, a bar
of soap like a large stone
in his hand.  Steam sheens
his body, on his shoulders drops
gather radiance, and light
and water cast
his legs, posed in fine
contrapposto, with silver
greaves.  I scrub
his hard calves and thighs.
My pudgy body, soft
from office work, towers over him.
He is all hard definition,
from pectorals to Achilles tendons.
My sex, mature
and crude is flaccid
in its ratty nest, but his is clean
and classical--bunched foreskin,
scrotum curved and lined
like a linden leaf.  Fresh,
lovely, living bronze, artifice
of lineage, as David,
he gazes down at himself,
charmed by his eye's arrowed
aim, his arm's opulent power,
not at all astonished
at this terrible wedding
of grace and force: may these common
waters anoint you, son,
whom I have chosen
for our covenant.  May you grow
in grace and, from your youth, stride
over the befouled heads of giants.

_{Copyright Scott Ward}