Secondary Sexual Characteristics

 

Secondary sexual characteristics,

by the time you’re thirty-five,
may tend defensively to flare
and bare and flash and jive
and dare to “speak” about themselves

when they begin to sense the prospect

of becoming weak and turning tertiary.
Aging is an estuary: fresh encounters
salt. Nobody’s fault
but God’s, if there’s a God.

So if you feel at odds,

and find you’re stripping down a lot
and flaunting it, that may be why.
Unless you’ve always done it,
and you simply aren’t shy.












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