Swordtails

a poem by Gershon Hepner

During courtship swordtails that are males

like following the females with a fin

as large as those on yachts tycoons may sail

to lead obliging mistresses to sin,

but female swordtails aren’t impressed

by fins when large, preferring smaller ones,

the big ones pestilential as the pest

produced by poets partial to poor puns.

Since female swordtails favor small fins more

than larger ones, what is the rationale

of males who flash their big ones like a bore,

lotharios in their watery locale?

It is a message to the male marines

that they decidedly are dominant,

like male landlubbers wearing tight blue jeans

to prove that they are proudly prominent.

What should we think of female swordtails’ taste

for small-finned males? Should we approve their choice,

or pity them for how they choose to waste

the pleasure of big size which should rejoice

their piscine hearts and give them major pleasure

when in the wine-dark sea it makes them come?

Size matters surely, measure comes for measure,

or so I’ve heard from blondes who are not dumb.

Copyright 2006 Gershon Hepner (gwhepner@yahoo.com)