The Cento: A Collection of Collage Poems

Men of Our Time

99 rIChArd flYnn Men of Our Time 1. Yesterday, I discovered my wife, Tonight I cup your breasts, Though she is only in the next room. I love breasts, hard. A frown gathers behind my wife’s smile. I have a delicious problem. I waited eighteen years to become a man. dad told me to hold the knife, Long before he thought of his own death. I know many men who wouldn’t. Pollen from the goldenrod rises: May there be an afterlife. 2. My father entered the kingdom of roots, A man clothed in memories. He danced with tall grass, He didn’t like being caged up, He cradled his head in those hands, He wanted to need no one, not 100 My mother. she gives a half-choked sob. Mother I’m sure you remember My first experience in a whorehouse— I stayed out all night and was drunk; Fifteen years later I still give thanks. 3. I get these girly magazines in the mail, because I have pried up, brushed off the self in me. I walk into your house, a friend. I stand before the window that opens. August lightning opens the afternoon sky, during “The desires of Monique.” Ordinarily I call it “my cock,” but Complaint is often the result of an inefficient Twitching in the cactus. It nods Into that pit When I take off your red sweatpants. ...