Poem Written as a Caption for a Picture Of Five Cousins Walking Together

-->

Sure you can

Chalk it up to love

But please also
Keep in mind

It’s the very meaning

Of the Oedipal myth

That we're dealing with 

In this picture
How blood kinship is

An inextricable link

A contract of adhesion

Of an altogether different sort than

Is typically fretted about in

Liberal academic circles

Though it’s never a matter

Of free choice per se

Yet still we remain

Jealous to the utmost

Of our prerogatives

In such things

Like the bond of effable chemistry

Between five cousins 

Walking together

Along the Sarasota beach

Held in good balance

Over the long haul

Notwithstanding selective

Inbreeding 

Here we are depicted 

So perfectly at ease

On an overcast day

After throwing ourselves

Into the tepid Gulf surf

It’s a bond irrevocable

Inasmuch as

Even if rejected

Blood relations

Or not will continue

To hold sway in a

Subcutaneous way

Not otherwise apparent

Across the genotype

But when thus

Openly acknowledged

By the heart

We flaunt our belonging

To one another nowhere better

Than as captured 

In the here and now