The Life Force
We teenagers at our co-ed religious boarding school wanted to mate. This desire was more powerful than the faculty, it was more powerful than anything. They were always digging us out of bushes, rescuing us from ponds, chasing us out of the woods. We were lustfully ablaze. They kept trying to demand we give an account of ourselves but reason had been bypassed – we were in the grip of an eternal force powering the planet, perpetuating our kind.
I knew that force again when I turned 29 years old. Suddenly I wanted to have a child. There were men on the scene – but they were a shiftless crew of can’t-bes, don’t-bes, and wanna-bes. Warriors don’t take No for an answer. I had to be able to do better than that, but my parents assured me that because of my career of exposing My Body For Profit, no decent man would have me.
But suddenly High School Boyfriend showed up, a working journalist, half-way through law school, interning for Ralph Nader. On our first meeting he told me he’d never loved anyone but me.
Hey, I thought. This could work.
Your Biological Time’s Up
This crowded world could not make do
without your life;
Summoned up, you surged
you split the crust
Shocked, I shuddered in my sheaves
as you uncored
Loosened my skin as we
Unmerged.
We travelled to the rim;
Your fragrant cell became
a soul unsheathed.
From my rind’s brim
you blinkered on the world
wondering at the fuss.
We are you and yet
You are not us.
Committed to a course beyond our love –
a forfeit tithe;
gentle as a snake and
wiser than a dove;
As stars consume their fuel
you were birthed to speed our lives.
Against the odds we found you
You found us
against the odds.
Consecrated to the great transformer
We love like mothers
We create like gods.
Alysse Aallyn 