I hate preachy poems. Don’t we all?
But is this even poetry? These days,
how can one decide? It seems to fall
to each of us to choose our favorite ways
of jumping out of prosody and call
those “poems” and thus worthy of our praise.

To suit my tastes, I’ve thrown in meter and
a painfully simple sampling of rhyme,
as if I hoped to form a little band
and sell this tripe as musically sublime.
In truth, I craft a vehicle so bland
it won’t divert you from the point this time.

When we are young and running in the race
to reproduce more quickly than the rest,
hormones fuel lust for hair and face
and legs and arms and clitoris and breast
until the glans is sheathed and thrusting’s pace
increases to the climax and the test:

Tomorrow, will you stay or will you go
looking for another place to plant
your seeds? Imperatives of nature know
their preference; are you recalcitrant?
Have had enough of planting? Will you show
that you can love as well as sweat and pant?

Later it gets easier to stay
as endocrine compulsions fade away.

(21 Sep 2021)