“THEY FUCK YOU UP,

YOUR MUM..."

“you’re
probably wondering
why I had Andrew
circumcised” she
begins

I sit on the sofa with
a china cup of decaff,
a wedge of Battenburg,
& a stupid fixed grin
while my mother and
my new girlfriend
discuss my most
naked genital
mutilation

such revelations of post-war NHS
policy on infant penile hygiene
& severed foreskins over tea
must be what Larkin meant
by the parental tendency
to fuck up their young

I’ve not
felt THIS fucked-up
since that first visit to
YOUR mother’s, when I shat
a monster turd that, despite
prayers, curses and nervous
Niagara’s of flushes refused
to S-bend into tactful
oblivion

no etiquette exists
for such situations

it all only
comes right later,
when we’re alone and you
tell me “hey, if ever you
feel the need for an extra
layer of tissue around your
most naked genital mutilation,
I’m here to provide it...”

Larkin’s equation
dissolves in
merged flesh


Published in:-
‘CHRONICLES OF DISORDER no.5’ (UK - May 1997)
‘BAKER STREET IRREGULARS no.4: MINOTAUR no.35’ (USA - August 2000)