Walk much, who used to watch long,
Straight-legged girls and boys run track
As a bored child with a book
In the lap, a bit awed, bit
Throbbed by the sight of those limbs—
Smooth, bare, not like these shroud legs
In loose pants to hide warped shapes—
Has to ask now, near old age,
What the green hell was all that?
Straight legs age as well. They run
Their course. And what is a course?
A game, a track, set of laps.
You get on and you get off,
And you’ve run your course, and then
What? You lie out in the grass
And stretch. Turn back to the book
On your lap, of course. Book laps.
When a germ has run its course,
It’s done. And if the germ’s won?
