victor altshul
spring 2016
A juiceless shrew with toothsome sneer,
Xanthippe declined the weary
sputtering of the inquiring Socratic member;
and Shaw, for all his verbal flame,
had his desiccated epistolary fill
of rectitude with a high-born dame,
elegance of ample flesh
left to shrivel in a November chill;
and is the Magdalen virginal still and fresh?
The four biographers of our lord perhaps
left no juicy bits for us to remember,
and those pious quattrocento chaps
swept her off to a lower corner
of the canvas, while all the mourners
looked at him alone, for Magda left them cold.
So scold
me for showing off some biologic bounce,
if you should feel so inclined,
but I would like to announce,
as I settle into November’s uncertain mind,
that I delight in the retention of a life
of nether thrills of a propulsive kind,
and noisy thrum with rumpled, scrumptious wife