Poetry

Annus Mirabilis Reversed

Jamie Grant

 

Sexual intercourse came to an end

in the twentieth century,

or that’s how it seemed to me,

between the topless swimsuit trend

and the coming of HIV.

 

The thing which remained unspoken

but everybody did

when each of us was a kid

was nonetheless the chief token

for sentiments which hid

 

behind modesty’s complex charade.

But then things turned around

and everybody found

it to be unavoidably hard

to ignore either the sound

 

or descriptions of the act.

Nothing was left unsaid,

and so it was that instead

of performing it in fact

it moved into the head.

 

So sexual intercourse came to an end,

and in its place there was porn.

Far fewer children were born

between the massage parlour trend

and the debut of Shane Warne.