I play the man who takes
his over-stuffed recliner
into the brambles
and sits there all day naked
covering his body
with insect spray
except for his genitals
and then asks, Am I normal?

And the sex therapist
who responds,
"Well, did you see
any other chairs?"

But this is not
the information
you want from either
this grave day.

For you are
the sixth-grade boy
who thinks he has said
something clever
when he asks
how do the astronauts
go to the bathroom.
Uranus levitatis,
the planets ascend.

Of course,
when I was child
I spoke like a twit.

And even now I do not
allow myself
too far from the pall.

"Did the mosquitoes
bite his balls?"
you demand.

"Did you really
sit there all day?"

The envelope, my dear:
"Yes and no. No and yes.

Yes, I did sit there all day.

Look, where the king wore
his golden crown,
a sordid fleece.

Can you see the farm boy
who shears the lamb?
Careful with his clippers.

Oops, blood on the bamboozle,
you can't win that way
no matter how you comb.

Look, my father emerges
from the bathroom,
spices of tissue on his chin.

Red poppies flutter
a field of ballerinas.
Where is that alum stick?

Bitterness keeps
us from bleeding—
and the poor brain.

He's having trouble now
my mother says
with "in-con-tin-u-ance"

I know what she means,
everything is seeping
down his legs.

My first memory,
staring into an amber bed lamp,
hanging above my face.