That Big D Mentality
“I love my dick,” says the young man
sitting with his friend at the bar.
They’re both good-looking guys
who work for the city’s sanitation
department; the bearded kid drives
the garbage truck, and the kid
who loves his dick, fit and tanned,
rides the back, collecting the cans.
“I just sent this girl a dick pic,”
he tells his friend, “and she already
hit me back, wanting to hook up.”
I’m sitting on the other side them,
pretending to watch the baseball game,
fascinated by the rules of engagement
that young people use, wondering
where one summons the steel-like nerve
to send a woman who you don’t know
from Eve a picture of your package
and expect her to be overcome by lust,
needing that ugly ineluctable vein
in her life to sate some inner-throbbing.
One time, when I lived in Las Vegas,
I bought a drink for a strange woman
sitting alone across the bar from me.
We ended up going home together
and later moving to the East Coast
with each other before a painful breakup.
I wonder if the kid who loves his dick
knows all of these potential pratfalls,
all the moving trucks where you can’t
just hop off and head to the next house.
Writing Prompts for the Pragmatic Poet
Roll yourself in a yoga mat then pretend you’re a starfish. Write about it.
*
Write a poem about your first time huffing gasoline.
*
Find an alpaca, and write a poem that phonetically captures its orgle.
*
Write a villanelle about Larry Dallas from Three’s Company.
*
Using only rhymed couplets, tell your significant other that you clogged the toilet.
*
Write a poem about the seven times you’ve been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
*
Torch your favorite pair of underwear then write a poem about loss.
*
Listen to a mash-up of alpaca sounds and “Bohemian Rhapsody.” That’s all.
*
Write a sestina about Blanche Deveraux from The Golden Girls.
*
Write a poem from the point-of-view of a Percocet.
*
Write a Petrarchan sonnet on premature ejaculation. Finish with line five.
Nathan Graziano lives in Manchester, New Hampshire, with his wife and a pug named Buster. He works as an English teacher and writes a column for Manchester Ink Link. Visit his website at https://www.nathangraziano.com/.
