Contributor Series 10: Silken Rags
The Mating Dance
By Christopher Roe
Pheasant’s ringed neck and feathered finery.
Peacock’s splendid robe of a hundred eyes.
Stag’s antlered rack of many points.
Frog’s throaty pouch of sultry croaks.
Macaw’s outrageously strident colors.
Firefly’s desperate midnight semaphore.
And frantic mayfly’s brief moment in the sun.
All male poses, struts, and excesses
in the name of lust and procreation.
But the human male is a duller beast
and it’s the woman who must resort
to costume and camouflage
artifice and subterfuge
and surgical enhancement
to beguile the hapless male.
Christopher Roe’s most recent poem to appear here was Waiting (November 2011).
a good read
Thank you!