Uxley Knew Nothing Of Women. Poem by Terry Collett

Uxley understood nothing of women.
He knew nothing of women except
Some dark memory of his mother’s teats
Buried deep in his mind’s depth.
Women, his father said, are an enigma,
An unsolvable puzzle, that no man
Can understand or get to grips with
No matter how old he is or gets.
Uxley missed his father’s words,
His narrow perspective, his keen eye
For the women’s physique, his philosophy
Of the Eve dilemma, the apple in the Garden
Of Eden problem. Uxley never married,
Never had sex, never saw a woman naked,
Except a onetime quick glimpse of his mother
Passing naked through the hall one cold Fall.
Even at cafes, sitting drinking coffee with friends,
He seldom gave the passing girls a second glance,
Not like his friends with their whistles and words
And wormy wishes. He sat and looked away,
Thinking the second sex a different species,
An area best left untouched, unknown,
Best left to the suckers who drowned
In the dark beneath. He recalled his mother
Clothed in the long robes, the tall thin features,
The drawn painted lips his father kissed,
The long red nails that jabbed in his back
To push him to school or bath, and there
In that memory her dark eyes and haughty laugh.