Species

So tell me, what do you make of this poem that I wrote after a walk this afternoon in Omaha's beautiful Lauritzen Gardens?

IDENTIFYING THE SPECIES

Strolling the wintery Gardens, 

its long silent lanes sunny but cool 

I watched a single hardy person

enter my lane a length ahead.

Hooded jacket, jeans, sneakers.

Male, I thought, but then I noticed

those sneakers, so clean, so white

they shone like new. Female.

I picked up speed to pass him/her

get a good look, but just as I did

he/she turned down a minor path.

Although tempted, I didn't follow.

Halfway up my finishing hill 

I stopped to catch breath, turned

And spotted he/she way behind me.

Frontal view. Bibbed hat. Male.

But when I paused to quaff water

the blue-garbed person walked

right by me: glossy red lips, 

big smile, wrinkled face. Female.

When she strode on, I never

thought I'd see her again,

but I did. She trudged home

as I drove by. Hood down,

her crest of dark brown hair

visible, her ruby lips radiant.

Homo sapiens femina

straining to pass for forty.