– after Rita Dove

Morning. I look at my fuzzy chest
in the bathroom mirror. What are these
hard disks, like quarters, under my nipples?
I’m a boy; am I growing breasts?
I can hear the girls in my class giggling.

Last evening during homework,
my father called me to the living room,
and back at my desk, I couldn’t remember
what he’d said, but I realized
he had not yelled at me like the day before
and the day before that and . . . The letters
in the book swam like fish avoiding
a bigger fish until the current
in my eyes calmed.

When I woke this morning,
my penis was hard, and it looked
at me with stern purpose.
I listed ten nicknames for it. Many
make no sense, like algebra,
but one day I will get the metaphors.

At breakfast, my cornflakes
grow limp faster than I can eat them.
My father has driven to work.
My mother is a mystery,
humming as she sips her coffee,
smiling at me through the steam.

– Eric Weil