Stuart Pickford
The Basics
Knackered, I steal away
for a deep soak, for heat.
Soon a sing-song voice
climbs the stairs - “Dad-dy?”
You crash in upon my secret.
Five years lift the waterlevel;
cramp me up the tap end.
Down both legs are bunches
of fresh purple bruises.
As sharks fin towards a boat,
I quiz you about the boys
at school, settle on football
or heroics on the monkey bars
I’d have, for your sake, stopped.
Your body I cupped in my palms
after you’d burst from that other
dark water, wet eyes swimming
on sound; a spiky alien
that came to taste the air.
There you sit, a cupped hand
juggling the balls in your scrotum.
Your gangly frame is mine:
a waist that sags a foot;
blue eyes fading into myopia;
family ears, a white cabbage
lopped in two, bolted on
with wing nuts, like Grandad’s.
These just the outward signs.
As you are grown up, the bath
isn’t evacuated by yellow fog
seeping. We don’t jump overboard
when torpedoes break the surface.
There are no tears, tonight,
you lie back like sunbathing, skin
flushes with warmth it’s hoarding.
“Can I grow a big willy?”
you ask, tugging your mouse.
“All your body will grow
into a man.” This you’ll gleefully
tell the neighbours - after peeling
your skin, ironing out
the sac wrinkled like a walnut.
It’s time. I teach you to wash
your foreskin. You grasp the basics.
Knowing the secret, you chatter,
compare - I too have got the bit,
the purple plum. That night
reading you to sleep, you hold
your willy and suck your thumb.
Page(s) 55-56
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