eros and dust

What warms the body still may freeze the soul,
what soothes the ear may be rough to the hand,
we aren't surprised to find the real thing bland
for showy leaves may hide a flimsy bole.
The point, it seems, is not to praise the whole
mass of those things we've come to understand;
instead we seek to excite that hottest gland,
the one that rules us all from head to sole.
Not what you think, the one that will respond
to clean cut body or to pleasing form
of well-made muscles or of round behind.
The organ is the one we have least conned
but which, well-comprehended sets the norm
less of the body and much more of the mind.