IT

I remember an awkward experience
the evening before my wedding day
my mother quietly asked if I,
soon to be married, knew about IT?
I guessed she meant the birds and the bees
or the S word not spoken aloud in her day
quickly assuring her that I knew, she left
relieved that her parental duty was done

Actually I knew very little about anything
only the brief facts explained in textbooks
or special segregated lectures in school
with embarrassing anatomical diagrams
Being an only child of a widowed mother
I wasn’t acquainted with the male anatomy
so my studies in art museums of nude statues
met two needs––scholastic and IT information

When I’d started my menstral periods
I frantically thought I was sick or dying
my mother hadn’t thought to prepare me
because menstration was connected to IT
I’d thought and wondered a lot about the subject
frequently discussed among my friends and
laughed about at late night slumber parties,
all of us were curious and mystified

Did our parents really do IT
we guessed so, because we were all born
but did they only do IT once or twice
in a lifetime just to have another baby?
What a truly intriguing topic,
someone always had some new tidbit
for our growing collection of erroneous
facts fed by our wild imaginations 

Boys in high school bragged about IT,
while girls wondered why embarrassed parents
worried about our dating relationships
but didn't speak of the facts of life

Nowadays our society is more open––too open,
as viagra ads fill the newscasts and scantily clad
bedroom scenes leave little to the imagination
we’re overloaded, tired of hearing about IT