What we feel comes long before
what we understand.
Turmoil in our loins comes
early as hints, whispers,
faints into the physical
long before the forays into reality.

A doctors therapy for
sores beneath my foreskin
sent me, at twelve, to hospital
for circumcision. {a tardy bris}
Ignorant of pain to come, I went
blithely to surgery.
Part of that journey
was the young prep nurse.

As I lay on the bed,
naked beneath that gown,
I watched that pretty young white
woman in white, approach,
pull curtains closed round us
turn to me and say.
“Now Kenny, just relax.”
So, saying, she began to shave
that minimal hair I had
around those parts.

Instantaneous erection!
Coupled with acute embarrassment!
And a more penetrating picture,
seed of future fears and
aphrodisiac…

This icon I see in my
memories

Young, pretty woman, tenderly
holding my erect penis
and twitching, ticklish testicles
with one hand, smiling, sliding
her other hand, scrotum bound
down my body, and in that hand
a gleaming
sterile
razor.