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Menopausal Mythology

The change of life
Really the loss of life
 as I knew it before 50
My body betrays me
Allows in an unknown entity
A SHE-DEVIL
 who robs me of primal pleasures
Gods forsake me
SHE turns food into fancy
Once a gourmet cook
 with a Bon Appetit appetite
Reduced to a weight watcher
 with weekly meetings
Good-bye Ben and Jerry
Eggs Benedict
Creme Caramel
English Trifle
Lares and Penates offer me
 no protection
SHE turns alcohol into asthma
Bold red wines used to
 announce every dinner
Martinis every party
Somehow I've offended Bacchus
He denies his devine gifts
SHE turns sleep into insomnia
Fourty-nine years of baby-deep sleep
Through divorce
Death
Teenagers
Transformed into nights of
 nocturnal sounds
Exaggerated problems
Entire novels
Sleep, god of the underground, allows
 no dreams through his horned gates
SHE turns my immune system
 over to bacteria
Viruses
Allergies
Acupuncture
Previously protected by Diana
Healed by Apollo
SHE turns my vaginal plum
 into a prune
Steals my sex life
Not so long ago a feverish force
Replaces it with hot flashes
Cold sweats
Hemorrhages half the month
PMS the other half
Breasts too sore for clothes
Nipples that ooze distress
Dryness that was once wet
I have more fantasies than facts
They say that this SHE-DEVIL pack rat
 is exorcised in another year or two
That most life forces return
Where are you Venus?
Eros
Juno
Minerva
I'm here
I'm waiting
I wonder if I get to choose
 which forces come home
I wonder which I'd pick

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