Ode to Adonis
I was Adonis once & remember
how the girls would come &
encircle me in their tight band
while older women out shopping
would put away their bags & gawp.
I a shy but centrifugal force
too often the target of their gaze
yet would not wield the power they gave
longing to grow fat & old & bald.
Looking back, I might well ask —
what fool longs to be divested of
his youth? Yet I wished to pass on what God gave
slip the envy that followed me like a dog.
Was it a mistake to deny the
beauty that made small men hate
& women swoon? When time turned
as I hoped it would I slinked happily away
with little fuss — Anonymity had become my god.
Now I counsel others thus —
never be surprised by your own decay —
discover the life force that can never age -
trade up, change horse, find the one
that was never born.
Copyright Simon Heathcote 2022
