What do you say? Do you tell her?

I told her.

And now your wife

wants to know why.

So does your therapist.

Maybe it’s because you remember

the day you figured it out

in fifth grade,

a full three years before

it was revealed 

in junior high health class

by a football coach 

that said puberty 

poo-ber-dee.

You were riding your bike

home after school,

puzzling it out.

You knew that somehow

the penis had to 

get into the vagina

for babies to get made.

But it just didn’t seem possible 

that the penis, 

a squishy little piece of flesh,

could be pushed against a vagina, 

and do anything but crumple.

If only it could be made firmer,

if only it had another state.

Wait a minute, 

I stopped the bike for this.

I remembered that the penis 

almost has the desired properties

when you wake up in the morning.

What your mom sometimes calls a flagpole.

Yes, that might just work,

a flagpole penis.

Oh my God, a flagpole penis! 

If you don’t take into account my age

at that moment, 

you might be unimpressed,

but remember this was pre-poo-ber-dee.

An erection was in no way connected

to desire in my mind.

I was like a man who’d never seen water,

trying to figure out how a fish swims.

I was an anatomical engineer 

that deduced the solution from first principles.

It was my on-the-road-to-Damascus moment.

Okay, not everybody gets to be Paul.

But when the great engineer in the sky 

has called your name, 

you go out and you preach the word.

And that is why I told my daughter.

Check out all the work in the Collection: Occasional Verse