The Measure of Desire
At age twenty—my first days on the job at the hospital—
I met a man distressed that his penis, so engorged, would not
go down. My job was to measure it every few hours,
and for the next three days leaned the wooden ruler
against skin, counted the inches. In the end,
relieved at his shrinking phallus, he returned home.
It was my first lesson in the limits of desire,
the longing for less rather than more.
Keeping Watch
Bobbie B. was tall, lanky, lobotomized—
nerve fibers clipped from frontal lobe decades ago.
Nights at the nursing facility, working the graveyard shift,
I’d look in on him lying stiff under the sheets,
murmur soothing words lay your head down on the pillow,
it’s okay—but he’d hold it aloft for hours, lying prone,
rigid, watchful. I knew he was keeping an eye out
for something, or against something—sometimes,
in the middle of the long night, I would see it too.
At age twenty—my first days on the job at the hospital—
I met a man distressed that his penis, so engorged, would not
go down. My job was to measure it every few hours,
and for the next three days leaned the wooden ruler
against skin, counted the inches. In the end,
relieved at his shrinking phallus, he returned home.
It was my first lesson in the limits of desire,
the longing for less rather than more.
Keeping Watch
Bobbie B. was tall, lanky, lobotomized—
nerve fibers clipped from frontal lobe decades ago.
Nights at the nursing facility, working the graveyard shift,
I’d look in on him lying stiff under the sheets,
murmur soothing words lay your head down on the pillow,
it’s okay—but he’d hold it aloft for hours, lying prone,
rigid, watchful. I knew he was keeping an eye out
for something, or against something—sometimes,
in the middle of the long night, I would see it too.
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