They speak today of pheromones and genes
When trying to account for such a state
Most often seen in young folk, in their teens
Or in their twenties, signalling a mate.
They would not think a man turned fifty-eight
Should be a candidate for such a blast
Of chemicals, or genes, or luck, or fate,
To blow him forty years back to his past.
His family and friends would be aghast
To hear their wrinkled sage bay at the moon
And warble that he’d found “the one” at last,
And call him “fool”, or worse, “romantic loon.”
But they don’t know because they were not there
To breathe the lethal darkness of your hair.