Thursday, October 11, 2018

Poem By Gale Acuff

Gale Acuff has appeared in Ascent, McNeese Review, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Poem, Adirondack Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Florida Review, Slant, Poem, Carolina Quarterly, Arkansas Review, South Dakota Review, Orbis, and many other journals. He has authored three books of poetry, all from BrickHouse Press: Buffalo Nickel, The Weight of the World, and The Story of My Lives.

Il Miglior Fabbro

Hubert McCloud brings a dildo to Shop
Class. He says that his father made it. It's
big, a lot bigger than mine, which is just
flesh. My member, I mean. I wonder if
his father had a model in the room
while he did it, the way a painter works,
or a sculptor, when they need somebody
and memory or photographs won't do.
I mean the way a fellow, sooner or
later, has to have a real live woman,
not just himself, to bring himself to boil
after all that fuming. I don't know how
to ask. I'm not familiar with this kind
of art, but I can see a pair of hands
shaping it, rubbing it, smoothing it out,
applying varnish and buffing away.
He lets us pass his father's wood around,
does Hubert. We touch it, some not for long.
It's handed to me and the fellows laugh
as I hand it like a hot potato
to Tommy Potts, the class clown and jerk-off,
to my left. Goddamn, he cries. It's Moby-Dick!
He puts it to his crotch and bucks across
the classroom. We're not really a Shop Class
--more like a study hall for guys who don't
study. We kill time by playing with our
jigsaws, or hammering boards together
and spreading them apart, just to warp nails.
Two one-by-fours are a lady's legs, and
the long thin nail is her husband's johnson
pecking her together where it counts most.
Or we make paddles and paddle away,
especially if someone bends over.
We whip out a paddle out and give a lick.
I've drilled holes in the business-end of mine
so that it gives pain and a louder yelp.
But Mr. Street walks in--someone forgot
to give the Stalag 17-type signal
--so we're screwed. Hubert hides his father's thing
behind his back. We're jerks in a circle,
looking down while Mr. Street penetrates
our soft center. Boys, what's goin' on here?
Hubert, what you got behind your back, son?
Nothing, Hubert says. Give, our leader says.
Hubert's shy, like a woman who's about
to undress for the first time in front of
a man. At least I think women are shy
--my sisters are shy. My mother is shy.
Hubert pulls it out, holds it with both hands.
Jesus H. Christ, Hubert, says Mr. Street.
What you got there? No, don't give it to me.
Put that thing away and come along. Two
minutes later Mr. Street is licking
him. Five pops, but they're not loud, lighter than
average. Hubert comes back in--he won't look
at us. Mr. Street returns a little
later. He's trying not to smile. Or grin.
Awright, boys, he says. That's enough of that.
Hubert's learned his lesson. Ain't you learned it,
Hubert? Hubert blushes, stares at sawdust.
Boys, don't brang them kindly thangs to school. Leave
'em at home where they belong. Hubert, tell
yo' momma to call me sometime, we got
somethin' to discuss. Yessir! he concludes.
Mr. Street splits again. Hubert's breaking
into a beautiful smile. Tommy says
Hubert, show me how to make one of them.
Ax your daddy to show you how so you
can show me. Ax him if he can make me
a pussy, too. Man, I sure do want some.
I wish I could suck my own dick. Jim Leech
says. I got one you can suck on, Tommy.
Fuck you in the mouth, Tommy says. Eat me.
 
That night I study my photos of girls
in lingerie ads I've spread on my bed.
The door is locked. I'm as hard as a tree.
They're posing passively in their paper skin
when suddenly Hubert comes to me, his
father's lumbering penis in his hands,
hands that cradle it by its carved scrotum.
He walks between us and kneels and offers
it to the redhead in the Maidenform
36C. She titters and takes it.
Then Hubert turns to me and slips a wink
and laughs as, in my right hand, I collapse.
I put the girls away between the sheets
of Gulliver's Travels, that part where he's
now shrunken, facing that enormous
teat. That's my favorite part, though Gulliver's
turned off. What kind of world is this, I think,
where a man has to find a real live girl
or die and she won't let him have any
else she's bad, and I'm too young to marry?

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