Flycatchers Poem by gershon hepner

Male flycatchers are a catch
when they have a forehead patch,
favored by most forward females,
like poetic, sexy e-mails.
Such a bright patch never fails
horny and seductive males,
but won’t lead to the inflation
of progeny, for procreation
depends on different sexual traits
that most females want in mates,
traits that would-be mother birds
find not in macho males but nerds
whom after mating they believe
will care for chicks that they conceive,
remaining in the female’s nest
to help with chores that males detest
if they are macho, wearing patches
that prove them to be lousy matches.
Though machos may be great in bed,
they aren’t the ones these birds would wed;
they love to kiss them with their beaks
but end up marrying the geeks.
Like flycatchers’ patches, words
attract to many poets birds
of the human species, but
since of such poets there’s a glut,
writing works less well than honey,
and the jillpot comes from money,
which females favor for frivolity
with males, because it is the quality
that is the apple of their eye,
like favored catches of the fly.

5/7/06