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?