Reading the headlines in the local newspaper: “Knights of Columbus stake out Adult Book Store. Videotapes handed over to Sheriff’s Department.” Oh, Knights of Columbus, faces shining, neatly groomed, your pictures hit the newsstand just today. Lords, judges, wardens, gatekeepers of all moral, I cringe at your audacity. With minds so straight and narrow, not even the Declaration of Independence, folded so tightly could be threaded through. You sit in your Detroit chariots, squeaky clean and new; hovering, hungry vultures; cameras rolling, faces wearing snickers, slyly smirking. Aged ten-year olds with cherub faces, who many years ago would have peered through tiny cracks into the girl’s locker room. Now they watch, record on tape for posterity, all who dare enter this legal “den of sin.”

I shout to the world and scream into the wind. I plead to all who value freedom, pay a visit to this “house of horror,” see what lies within. Let us fill their tapes with graven images. Tired housewives looking for a lift, loggers, truckers, salesmen, lawyers whose sex life may be flagging, and leaders of the community who can use a helping hand. How dare these self-appointed watchmen presume to tell us what we shouldn’t read, or the imagery we mustn’t see? How dare they dictate how others take their pleasure, or demand of us who show no outward rigors of religion, that we must be ruled by their immature fraternal games.

But, please, oh please, don’t bring them into my garden, as there lies within such a shameless world of passion. A world where sex is ripe and rampant. Pixie porn played out among the Cosmos and the Cornflowers. God forbid, they should observe the lust that lurks within. Don’t tell them of the fornication, the bestiality that goes on beneath the trees. Birds and honeybees dart greedily amongst the kaleidoscope of color, caressing softly sensuous stigma, bringing magic potions, golden powders, impregnating flower after flower. As apple blossoms fall like snow, and rosy petals of the peach give way to fruit, don’t let them know then, these ribald fruits have just had sex.

Don’t give up my “Naked Ladies” who hide behind the roses, or my naughty little Naked Boys who frolic by the spring. Don’t tell them about my Devil’s Dick, with his pungent fetid odor, and please don’t give up my Red Hot Pokers which slowly silently creep much closer into the dank depths of my wicked Virgin’s Bower. Don’t let them see my Pussy Willow, whose silky mounds burst forth for all to see; and for God’s sake, don’t spread the word around this town, about my flagrant Burning Bush.

While autumn days grow shorter, cold winds drift in from the sea. Won’t you please keep these busybodies off my land before they spot the torrid passion spun by a wanton’s gardener’s hand.

Don’t let them see the smut, or be seduced by Honeysuckle, and I know that Tagetes erecta would offend them to no end. They would shudder at the Cupid’s Dart, the disbudding and the Rape. So keep these Knights in shining armor at home where they belong. Don’t let them in my garden, it would their prying eyes offend. Give them better things to do, Oh Lord, another life to lead, because the sex you see in gardens is God’s pleasure, not a sin.