Fur Piece

You’d prefer us to have fur

Like other animals’: thick, sweet, soft, glossy,

Pettable. Though you manage

Well to give the impression that you

Like petting this scant-haired arm,

For today, anyway, and that’s like other animals,

Who just do what’s in them to do

From heaven knows which mothers’ natures.

Now and then even the fathers count,

Left behind at the scene of the birth,

Too dim-sighted to make out

Which females have flown.

No, you say, that’s no close kin to us;

That’s lower animals.

Don’t kiss me,

You who don’t like getting tangled

Up in women’s long hairs,

Like them cut, asked me to put mine up,

Pull it back, get it out of your way.

Hair’s all right in bouquets of women’s heads,

Mere foliage for those features,

Themselves so troublesome.

The best eye is the eye inside.

A manageably short cut of fur would cover

All of us up, warm us, smooth us, shield us,

Even though we’re said to be

No longer ashamed of our nakedness.