Genitals — A Note to my wife

by Bobby Byrd

Genitals — A Note to my wife

Lee,
50 and more years together
and last night
I used the word “genitals,” like
I think for the first time
in a conversation between
you and me.
It startled me, the word “genitals,”
perfect, it was
at the end of a sentence
about our bodies growing old.

“Genitals.” 

Your genitals.
My genitals.
Our genitals.

Like a little poem, huh?
A love poem.
This morning, in the stillness before sunrise,
I went out in the back to pee.
There in the bluing sky
Venus
the Goddess of Love
rose up above a little bit of leftover moon.
The tiny planet Mercury
— winged-foot Messenger of Gods —
was supposed to be off to the left
but I couldn’t find him.
He had just disappeared
into the vast emptiness of sky.
Yeah, yeah, I know
planets and stars, they really have no
left and right, no above and below,
no sex, no name, and the sun —
“the sun is but a morning star.”
That’s what Thoreau said.
Gary Snyder said the same thing.
And the cats were talking to me too.
They were hungry.
It was their time to eat.
I had to go feed the cats.
Love, Bobby