Shouldn't Everyone Get a Choice

With the heaving and the strain,
with the lurching and the shuddering,
with the groaning and moaning,
but from pleasure, not pain,
comes the release.
This tiny eruption
brings life
or simple pleasure
without restraint.
Elsewhere, salmon struggle against the stream to spawn
mammals rut in mud
and humans
define their self-identity
by the life or pleasure
created by a stream of pearls
and into which gender’s body it flows,
like geographic psychology.
So many issues
over what may be one’s issue.
Block the stream with dams?
Ache for skin to skin contact and an unfettered flow
with risk of AIDS or birth?
Wait and see,
take the meds if need be,
and scrape this potential life away?
Have a child who brings
you life or death or both.
Is it worth it?
These urges, so primal
can not be resisted
and we are
soon at one with
the striving
of life.

Copyright 2004 by Ron Hudson.

Categories: poetry HIV/AIDS contraception politics