Over the last three years,
three women tried to steal my sperm
one was true, she really loved me
she wanted to birth my baby,
I agreed cause I loved her
The other two said
they were on the pill
They just lied
I’m tellin’ you this
cause I know you’re concerned
you’re my very best friend
and I have to get it off my chest
And I’ll tell you right now:
I forbid you to put this in a poem,
I have dominant genes
for some recessive disease,
that although I don’t have it
my children will
Almost all the men in my family
are blinded by this malady
It’s a plague that eats away their sight
It starts in mid to late thirties
they’re stoned blind by fifty
So when Renee, the love of my life
says she wants to have my babies
I had a feeling I never had before:
that overwhelming primal urge
to shoot my sperm within her loins
and watch it swell into a baby
but when we tried
the seed failed to fertilize
And I discovered I was sterile
GOD HELP ME, I WAS DESPONDENT
EITHER WAY, I COULDN’T WIN GENETICALLY
Now I’m brokenhearted
Renee I loved and would’ve married
But she returned to her former lover
and implored him
to seed her female garden
Since then Renee begged me
to remain her friend
and I did because I
didn’t want her to think
I wasn’t man enough to do that
And to this day
I still love her
Now, I’ve got three to take her place
But don’t worry,
Let me set your mind at ease
I can’t be tricked into
being a blind progenitor
and I mean that both ways
I know I should be grateful
But none of them excite me
And although it’s satisfying,
I’m very lonely
for the woman of my dreams
From way back in 93, a true story told me by a close friend. First published in Ashville Poetry Review.
