When I Met Sharon Olds She Told Me to Write A Poem About LBJ's Penis

When I Met Sharon Olds She Told Me to Write A Poem About LBJ’s Penis Sasha Debevec-McKenney poetry Everyone in my family knew how horny I was long before I did. At my grandmother’s funeral I remembered fondly the time she caught me looking at porn over her dial-up. I humped her basement floor watching BET Uncut. Music videos had the most sex. Women bent over and covered in cash, conquered. At home my mother slept on the couch, so I sat upstairs on the corner of her bed, flipping through channels, looking for sex. I was desperate to see a penis. I skipped school and found sex during the day on Jerry Springer. I didn’t want to write the poem. What’s so poetic about a sad man pulling proof out of his pants, windmilling his dick backwards into his own grave? What color could you even compare him to? I remember my elementary school gym teacher laughing at his own punchline, some joke about touching yourself. SASHA DEBEVEC-MCKENNEY | 133 I knew the joke was about sex so I kept my questions to myself. Wouldn’t it be impossible to not touch yourself? I think I might be touching myself right now? I assumed everyone knew that whenever LBJ felt stupid or upstaged or small, he took his penis out. He slammed it on the table. My life changed when I found out what I could do with my mouth. I licked it all up, thirsty as any lifelong learner, any other lover of the last drop, swallowing everything but what I had to say. I bragged with the bombs I was given. I dropped them exactly when I wanted. Rules were only odes to order, suggestions with a playful grip on the throat. My pussy ruined a marriage, led them back to each other and blessed them with a son. My body count is growing. Gather the video girls. Tell them to twerk to this: LBJ is in hell with all the other Presidents! On a burning hilltop, in a graveyard full of flaccid legacies, they wave their penises like white flags. 134 | SASHA DEBEVEC-MCKENNEY ...