POEM FOR TODAY. Forrest Hamer
http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/Forrest-Hamer Erection I wanted them bad: the mail-order x-ray glasses that looked straight through clothes to bodies– of those in my class, of the old-lady teacher who wore miniskirts and an opened blouse, of grownups whose eyes stopped meeting mine. I wanted to see a privacy clothes know: the geography of the possible. I waited. And when the glasses hadn't come, and each day's disappointment stung like slaps, I worried that other people could see hard-ons hidden by long-tailed shirts worn outside the pants, by a walk-become-a-race, or by the distraction of stubborness and anger. And arrogance. Wondered if they could see how timid the penis otherwise seemed, how fat still my chest was, making improbable breasts. Wondered if they could see the tenseness of no-more-but-not-yet, of sleep-erupting dreams having nothing to do with the body and everything, desire becoming specific. And when the glasses still hadn't come and there was cause to d...