Uncle Hartley
Took me discreetly aside
last month
with his awful gait,
to the shed.
Told me matter-of-factly
in hushed tones
how the surgeon
had hacked out his prostate
the size of a grapefruit,
how the sex-therapist
wore bright red lipstick
and a black g-string
how she stroked his choad,
his wife oddly staring on
cupping his goolies
ready to pass the penile injection.
I awoke today
thinking my uncle’s
predicament an apt metaphor
to the writing of poetry:
sometimes words are like hands
trying to force the lizard to vomit
the wrinkled chup,
the cruel jiggling to ineptitude.