With pearls for teeth and ruby lips,

sleek jet black hair and emerald eyes,

with golden shoulders, ivory hips,

pale opal breasts and silver thighs

your beauty is so near divine,

no need for jewels, diamond mine.

"them", "they" and "their" for a single person

are ungrammatical and confusing

because those words are essentially plural.

The transgender world requires using

some new words for the new situation -

something singular just by fusing

"he" and "she" to breathy "shhe",

"him" and "her" to "hem" and "hir"

and "his" and "hers" to "hirs".

A little practice will make it clear(s) !

While reading

I thought to kill it with a clap

as it floated upwards to my face.

Another fruit fly from the plants,

a plague of Spring inside the room.

But then I saw how smooth the rise.

No flying insect's flitty flight

but aimed intently straight ahead.

And as it neared the legs came clear.

A tiny spider it appeared.

But how could it rise so steadily?

Convection current in the air?

Some invisible trailing hair?

Whatever, it climbed out of sight

to mount on glasses, eyebrow, skin?

A trivial moment of delight.

So many beautiful young women !

I look at them with hidden lust.

They of course don't look at me

or if they do, it's with disgust.

If it's free, I'll have it.

"Let me help you up, Senor" he said

as I sprawled on the stucco pavement where I'd tripped.

"Obrigado" I replied once standing.

Then "Shit, I've broken my sandal. Bugger"  "Que?"

I limped back to the dorm with the broken flip-flop

and threw them both in the bin. "What use is one?"

I couldn't bear to buy another pair

and managed the rest of the trip with plimsolls.

"What on earth do you want that for?" she'd said.

"Well, it might have a use. You never know"

"Oh, leave it be! You're such a miserly hoarder"

(She didn't mince her words, my long dead wife.)

Back in UK while looking in my shoe drawer

I noticed the single fllip-flop that she'd seen me

pick up from the pavement years before.

And it would have been the right replacement.

Dating ?

Regular visitors to my garden

when the sun shines between the showers,

a pair of wood pigeons forage together

searching for food among the flowers.

It makes me wonder what's their connection.

Just the two of them, never with others.

Possibly an old married couple?

Or family bonded, sisters, brothers?

Or perhaps the start of a new relation?

As so often seen together lends

credence to speculation whether

it's a new romance or just good friends.

Though sexes attract

the contact is fraught;

the act is the fact

but the thrill is the thought,