Actaeon: Chorus

There are these inevitabilities
so
after all we suffer through
we promise ourselves a spring to follow discontent
yet
given the right outlook
everyday can be the dog's
or
remember some imperfection that might
laugh it off
like
that woman way back when and far away
who had the where-with-all
to
take matters into her own hands
making herself some sort of emotional air-conditioning
(oh, you know the kind)
and
youngman from aboutown
got curious and took for himself
a
look-see that the mistress liked none too much
got wind of things and had
onefit-of-frenzy-to-be-tied
sending hornyoungman home
with a permanent injury
well,
manaboutown
was never the same again
was just about back-bit to shreds
by
all of those folks who have nothing to do better than
tell stories about stuff that they all know
couldn't be
true if they'd seen the half of it
But the half I saw went like
this:
Youngman's vision of the lonely lady
climate-controlled, insulated
like that
made him shiverup inside
shrivelup out
and
the promise of spring became
no small threat.

(1982)