Poem: High School Contraception

They say she lacks school spirit
because she will not trade her low cut blouses
for ones with their Trojan mascot on them.
It’s not a matter of spirit, she insists, or decency,
but of principle: that stubborn 3 percent error
couched in each of the word Trojans’ connotations:
soldiers crouching till nightfall,
the translucent stain of spilled semen;
the promise that no protection is complete
and that the vehicle bearing us toward the future
though it may miss a few stops
will undoubtedly get there in the end,
though in the meantime it reminds us
with bright yellow letters
that every end is also a beginning
and that 3 percent is just large enough a margin
to spend one’s life crawling through.
It assures us for liability’s sake
that a child is not a catastrophe
and nor is a civilization burning,
for progress is as unfailing as demise, and yes
demise is unfailing. And what are our lives anyway
if not a Hydra of paths we haven’t chosen
but which spring up, two for every one we ignore?
But none of that matters to her
because it’s a t-shirt she won’t wear.
Ready to change the subject, she shrugs dismissively
and says she takes the pill
because 2 percent is better than 3,
and that might well have been the margin
that left Troy standing.