Swimming in their Blood

In the beginning was the first blow,
and the first blow begat vengeance,
and the next blow begat vengeance,
and vengeance begat vengeance,
like a family tree of misery.

The never-ending tit for tat
wrenched babes from tit and
tattered the world.
The vision of She Who Ever Fights
wades in the blood of the fallen
and her sword arm never fails.

And with each generation the lie
of who did what to whom and how
blood answering blood
will cancel the stain,
and ever do we see an
increasingly blood-stained history.

And microscopically I see
the everfighting bacilli
invisible to the naked eye
wading in the blood of those who
ever fight, infecting them
with bloody dreams.

For my steel, a needle
I might prefer, to subtly inject
an antidote to this bloody strain
that so poisonously infects,
inoculating with common good
against whatever this is
swimming in their blood.

Regarding Current Athletes

I wonder sometimes about
my body, and how I might have loved it better
had I accepted myself more.

Instead of wanting my
curves to disappear, what if I wanted them to do
things regardless of the looks?

If I accepted my bare self
and all the things I and that body could do
would I have done more?

My forty-ish body has
the beauty of gentle decline, soft
curved, genetically-blessed.

But it never was conqueror
on the field of play, nor exulted in triumph,
being pushed to an extreme.

At a pace where I set my standards high
and made myself the master of these
so many pounds of flesh?

Were my queer-bodied self more
authentically mine, might I have run it to a
more comfortable place?

And found myself more comfortable
in a less-stretched skin that I could live in?
Would I wear a different face?

I can not know, but only rejoice
in those whose bodies have become their voice.