He covers my eyes with sponges dripping
the scent of soap, and after the needle
pinches the pulpy mole on my chin and squeezes
in the liquid anesthetic, I feel a bomb
at an air show melt my face, toasted so
I won't feel or care about the thin blade
slitting my skin or the spitting blood from severed
capillaries.Through cloud openings below
my eyelids, fingers of giants fumble with rods
and scalpels, their tan tight elastic sprayed red.He tugslittle
at a time.Flesh tearing sounds like shrimp
bitten; I hear the ripping
threads of cuticle above the moaning
machines in that room.
Blood slithers towards
my clavicle.I grip a metal
bar then the palm of a female, and she licks me
with a wet and dead cow tongue—
a lubricated patch on my bare stomach
to ground me for electric shock.After each beep
like a low battery smoke
detector, a soldering iron pushes electric pulses into my chin,
makes the skin
boil in brief agony
and the blood sizzle and the smell
of burnt vessels linger like hair
singed by fire.
A new tube slurps the blood clean
from the gash, vacuums the soupy flesh, sucks
the bottom of a milkshake; a new needle pricks,
towing thread, jerking on
the cloth of face.Like jaded labia majora,
the cleft lips close and kiss
forever.

And then, the chin is…

Part 3:and Scrotum 

Beneath the blue gown, cotton green
slippers cover half my ankles and keep my feet warm
and sterile.I lie on the human
tray beneath a white sheet, knowing I am
naked, reading diagrams and pictures
of inner ears to turn my mind to anything
but sex.The doctor comes with a nurse,
both prepared to concentrate
on the skin that clings
to my testicles.
The doctor yanks on
a drawer and instruments rattle like pencils and paper
clips, and he finds the one he wants—short-bladed
scissors, more like a wrench or wire
clippers.He eases the sheet down and pulls up what feels like a skirt,
making sure to expose only my jolly pouch; the nurse rests
her wrist on my cowering
penis, pulling up my scrotum to tighten the loose
membrane.
The doctor pulls out
a needle, and with his forearm braced
between my legs, pokes the tip
of the syringe into the tiny sacks
of excess skin.My eyes and thighs
wince and I yelp and pull myself up
off the needle and settle down quickly.I pant
and grip the sheets as the doctor peeps through his precision
glasses and slides the needle in again—muscles
clinch tighter than rocks.He jerks
out the needle, and the nurse uses her other hand
to press stringy gauze against
dripping blood.
The doctor drops the syringe
on the table and seizes the clippers and a clean
cloth; my testicles shift and slide as the open cold
blades maneuver to the base of the growth.
I think of the nurse’s hand on my penis.
The scissors bite down on my scrotum, plucking
the skin tags, ripping my skin, perfecting
the sack of soupe du jour.

Much later, the scrotum is…

Part 4:The Love Poem