Evolution

My penis fell off one day when I was eight.
It’s just that I was running so fast
With scissors
It was an accident.
My uncle soldier found it on the ground and handed it back to me.
He said the government would take it from me
And lock me away, for being so careless.
I put it in my back pocket
Rolled up in a Lick’em Stix bag of powdered sugar
For safe keeping.

One night, at an adolescent pit party
I was dancing to Today’s Tom Sawyer on the hood of a Matador
And clumsily dropped my penis
Into a young girl’s Southern Comfort and Tab
Her eyes lit up and she said she loved me too.
She used my penis as a pointer on a map
to show me our plan of escape.

A Performance Artist displayed it on a twisted string of yarn around her neck
like a talisman.

One woman used it to initial codicils in legal documents
from her father’s estate.

Boys in Greenwich Village tossed it around during extended games of keep away,
what a fun summer.

One older and gentle man had it dipped in gold and pinned to the lapel of his jacket
only to be worn at parties.

I’ve bartered with it for rent,
pawned it for drugs,
and hurled it at people in self defense;
Now I keep it in a coffee can buried in the back yard.
I check every once in a while to make sure it hasn’t been disturbed by animals.