Reckoning
F. says he’d like to give himself permission
to be a dick, just for once, just for play,
and he demonstrates how he’d strut,
chest out like a gorilla, like certain politicians,
and we laugh and cheer him on because in real life
he’s a man who sits quietly with the broken-hearted,
and there are very few people
who can shut up and take in another person’s soul
trying to sing, but he can and somehow
we’re used to the idea of Man
riding roughshod over everything,
like that’s what masculine is supposed to look like,
and I wonder about the dick
inside of me, the one who likes
to swagger and brag,
and plow everyone out of the way–
but then I think of real dicks,
their softness and shyness and sometimes awkward
enthusiasm, the way they make their feelings known
to a listening hand or mouth,
and I think of the good men
I’ve known and what we were all told
about how men needed to behave to even be
considered men and I get it, we can all
be dicks sometimes, the ones of us who slop around
in our cynicism like a pair of old slippers,
the ones who grasp at every glittering thing,
or cling to ancient hatreds
like useless coins from a conquered country.
And maybe the dick is just something
we just have to reckon with
since it’s at the base of western civilization–
even god in the old testament acted like one,
smiting people and demanding tribute like any bully.
So yes, I think we’re just like that god we invented,
who was so jealous and capricious and vengeful.
Maybe He’s just a reflection of us
at our most power-hungry and scared,
and we need to own that part of ourselves,
offer it cool water and a place to chill,
but we sure as hell don’t have to get down
on our knees and worship it.
*
Alison Luterman’s five books of poetry are The Largest Possible Life, See How We Almost Fly, Desire Zoo, In the Time of Great Fires, and Hard Listening. She also writes plays, song lyrics, and personal essays. She has taught at New College, The Writing Salon, Catamaran, Esalen and Omega Institutes and writing workshops around the country, as well as working as a California poet in the schools for many years.