Sex Too Much 1961 Poem by Terry Collett

That was a jay
Jane said
that bird
we've just seen

it belongs
to the crow family
it's an Eurasian Jay
I was listening to her

but taking in
the line of her jaw
as she spoke
the lips

opening and closing
as the words flowed
it's a lovely bird
I said

what colour eggs?
she told me
and we were
walking up the drive

up the Downs
trees on either side
birds calling
rooks and crows

and the sound
of pheasants
from the fields
and cows mooing

and her hand
was near mine
as she spoke
I wanted to hold it

and put it to my cheek
and feel
the softness of her
but I let my hand

stay just an inch away
and I could smell
the scent of her
apple and hay

and something
she'd borrowed
from her mother
(I'd smelt it

when I was
at her parents house
the other day
for the tea)

what do your parents
think of me
after the third degree
the other day?

I said
we stopped and she said
they like you
and trust you

she said
they trust me anyway
but it is you
they were unsure about

but yes they have
taken you as trustworthy
she added smiling
I smiled too

glad I'd been thought
trustworthy
especially after
her mother's

scrutiny of me
the questions
she had asked
just on the border of things

that Lizbeth's a different sort
Jane said
she and sex
go together

like cheese and onion
but I am not like that
I don't mean to
sound prudish but

I couldn't not
before marriage
I nodded my head
and was nonplussed

about it all
we walked on
she talked of the man
her father knew

whose daughter
had got herself pregnant
and she was only 14
and there was hell to pay

and they left the area
and the girl
was taken some place
and it has worried Father

ever since
I see
I said
and she took my hand

and it was soft
and I sensed her
skin and warmth
and her body near mine

and there was sounds
of rooks above our heads
in the tall trees
and knew Lizbeth

wouldn't talk
of birds or such
she liked her ideas
of sex too much.