If Sex is Important to Marriage

Myrna says she has been raped by aliens.
Asked how it went, she says it was like nothing
Sexual. She didn’t even have to get undressed.
Just a tap to her forehead, heat all over,
And she could feel an invading presence
Curl up to home in her womb. Her husband
With three beers in him on Friday night says
That is about how it would have to happen
With Myrna. A cold women, with a sense
Of duty but no joy in it, her thoughts
On how the most simple of acts should logically proceed
Seem to come from one too many comic book romances
And a belief that sin will leak back to the National Enquirer.
Smart alien, he says, to use a tap on the forehead
And save himself hours of work without a measurable end:
About time someone popped some sense into her.
God knows, he doesn’t want the task anymore.
But it is his wife, and most likely his child,
And he has noticed sometimes in the middle of his best efforts
She does bend her knees or look down from the ceiling –
And once, half way through, to keep from enjoying herself
Started to recite out loud the week’s shopping list.
He leans back in his chair, both hands behind
The six week’s scruff collecting on his neck,
Smiles like a man a full six pack further along
And says a tap to the forehead: must have been
One hell of a potent alien.

Copyright 1991 The Black Fly Review