Down Under

Emus like to keep their intimate relations
secret. The female, unprepossessing in her
feathers, the male leaping in the air,
twisting, kicking, like some soccer sensation -
the armless dance of these mad flightless birds
makes us laugh. And why? Do we see a resemblance
between their antics and our own? Romance,
in any case, smacking of the absurd?

Sometimes when our love-making goes on too long,
and when we come back from desire's far country,
with its strange customs and odd acrobatics,
before we've quite filled our itinerary
or reached our own exotic destinations,
our wooing's as goofy as emus dragooned into nature flicks.

- Ronald Wallace

© 1995.

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