THE MUSE GENE

My Australopithecus-self dumbfoundedly watches

my muse-self pirouette in a pigsty and spill,

those unblemished legs flung every which way,

those bounteous breasts flopped like the dugs of a dog.

He tries, innocent thing, not to see, to have seen.

To evolve all this way and have beauty be ugly?

Is this what’s meant by the “modern”?

It’s worse than our old life as prey.

… And, really, was the savannah so bad? Predators,

yes, but no TV, no malls. To eat: yum,

berries and bugs; medium cyclic sex drive.

Who needed a stunt-flying klutz of a muse?

Consider her point of view, though: that meagerly

minded ape-person can’t even revise.

Imagine: life as first draft — up the hill, draft;

down the hill, draft — draft, draft, draft.

No wonder muse-self would lose interest.

No wonder wander. Live with a one-psychèd brute?

No wonder my room stinks like a sweatshop.

No wonder headaches, no wonder blank.

Maybe it wasn’t a great idea nailing wings

to such a recalcitrant screech.

But what a good time we’ve had à trois.

Up the hill, down the hill: forward march!