THE BEES AND THE BEES

Were you told about birds and bees
when your body changed
and hair spread like mold from fecund flesh?
The bread was fine yesterday.

The coach in health class said “fertile,” a word that
disturbed us all. No, not us;
boys who boisterously bragged about future conquests
now gulp at the the thought that their seed
might bring forth a first fruit.

Sure, then, we learned about seed
and how to sow it, in secret and in whom,
and where. Boys practicing to be men
by playing house mates with one another.

This is just to know how it feels, we said,
bodies finding the exact calibration of distance.
Here, we erect our secret gardens connected by,
we insist, only a temporary bridge.