"Granny's Song."
"If the factor itself were not--"
I can't do a granny.
Part of the problem with doing a granny is I never had kids.
I would have been a lot older now--
or a lot younger.
"If the fact itself were not at odds
with most of my hopes for human life,
I want to know why sex was always best
when I stood to lose the most.
Why make its charms so devilishly proximal to risk?
The patterns ought to favor children's best protection, not
one parent hardened and one hurt, one predator, one weak.
But nurturance appeared to have no part in our old,
fastest appetites, our grappling hooks and eye meats.
Well, a mortally afflicted tree will scatter seed.
That's nature's way of furthering its kind.
In my own 60s, here where issue's not the issue,
not unless I go to Delhi for an embryo implant
and, let me tell you, I am not that nuts.
Here, nearly sixtified, I'd say I'd settle for a kindness,
tender looks, not tenterhooks.
A cuddle, not a cattle prod.
Dear God, you made me pull away from every club, and strut,
and hoe.
Don't now, on my account, sweet chariot, swing so damn low."
[LAUGHTER]