BS Johnson - Love-All

The decorously informative church
<i>Guide to Sex</i> suggested that any urge
could well be controlled by playing tennis:
and the game provided also "many
harmless opportunities for healthy
social intercourse between the sexes."

For weeks the drawings in the <i>Guide</i> misled
me as to what went where, but nonetheless
I booked the public courts and learnt the game
with other curious youths of my age:
and later joined a club, to lose six one,
six love, in the first round of the Open.

But the only girl I ever met had
her "energies channelled" far too bloody
"healthily", and very quickly let me
know that love was merely another means
of saying nil. It was not as though I
became any good at tennis; either.

BS Johnson

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/love-all/