Love-All

A poem by Ben Jonson

The decorously informative church
Guide to Sex suggested that any urge
could well be controlled by playing tennis:
and the game provided also "many
harmless opportunities for healthy
social intercourse between the sexes."

For weeks the drawings in the Guide misled
me as to what went where, but nonetheless
I booked the public courts and learnt the game
with other curious youths of my age:
and later joined a club, to lose six one,
six love, in the first round of the Open.

But the only girl I ever met had
her "energies channelled" far too bloody
"healthily", and very quickly let me
know that love was merely another means
of saying nil. It was not as though I
became any good at tennis; either.