Valentine for Lynn

Posted on February 14, 2004 in Poems

It’s a damn fine thing that I’m not a deer who has

     antlers that get caught in the low boughs of

     oak trees;

Or a desert bighorn with snail curl horns to prove

     my love for you by beating my brains out

     head to head with another nut-heavy fool.

Were I obliged to fight off every young buck

     just to be able to twirl my tongue around the

     bunch grass leaves with you, what thought

     engine would I have left after such repeated

     love calamities?

I’d have little to say.   My speech centers would

     be pocketed like a boxer who has been

     pummeled in the forehead too many times.

The grunt and the snort would be my only

     language of passion; and I’d smell worse

     than a goat.

How could we have the interesting

     conversations that we enjoy in the car

     if I had a ruminant’s mind, battered by

     the rituals of quadruped patriarchy?