(Notice: When I wrote this poem, I added a note in the margin:
When I read it in public, I'd introduce it with that note. I'd see people [usually college-age males] smirking and nudging each other with anticipation. The smirks generally disappeared after I read the first few lines -- they weren't expecting the poem to be totally gay, I presume. But you know better, don't you?)
This poem is for people who like to laugh a lot in bed. It is not for people who put on surgical masks and gloves before they commence.
When I read it in public, I'd introduce it with that note. I'd see people [usually college-age males] smirking and nudging each other with anticipation. The smirks generally disappeared after I read the first few lines -- they weren't expecting the poem to be totally gay, I presume. But you know better, don't you?)
a very practical nursery rhyme
a fuzzy boy
bounced in my arms all nite
much more practical than a teddy bear
covered from head to toe
with little brown and golden hairs
hairs on the sheets
hairs in our mouths when we kissed
the breeze from my window fan
teased our wet fur
while we played together
like puppy seals
all next day
his smells clung to me
rising smiling from my shirt
on my sheets
on my cheeks
like cotton candy
melted on my face and hands
now that fuzzy boy
lingers on the page
the same way
and though words are to hairs
like hairs are to cotton candy
(they don't melt
you must keep picking them off your tongue)
they linger longer in your mind
like a fuzzy boy,
much more practical
than a teddy bear
4 September 1977
