Jotting this
I’m just shy
of three months post-op
and a preposterous thought
burst open inside me:
What if I were to write
my vasectomy,
exploring in earnest
what it means to me,
calling it something like
My Vasectomy and Me
or Vasecto-me Vasecto-you
or Are You There God,
It's My Vas.
Let me give the game away
and lay out the subtext,
or the undercurrent,
or the politics of the thing:
To write this post-op
in a Post-Roe era, well,
I suppose it’s a choice,
but for the life of me
I can’t shake
how tempting it seems
to lean in
to my monstrousness,
to give the groundlings
what they’re asking for:
crass anatomical humor
and how rife it is
or ought to be
in poetry, especially
when it comes
from the men-folk.
Consider Heaney’s “Digging,”
how pen and spade each fit
“snug as a gun” and all that jazz.
Or jizz.
Really, though, I lay
this groundwork
because I truly do
have a text
in view
as target:
Namely, Ammon’s

Tape for the Turn of the Year
what, with his idea
for “a long thin / poem” because
I sense there’s a dick
joke to be made there,
or in my handling
of it at least.
Gauche, unbecoming, unseemly
as I’ve been told
it is
to write alongside another’s work,
it would appear
circumstances have converged.
A chord has been struck. A phoenix
is rising.

​

//

​

I keep coming round to the words
“preposterous” and “monstrous”
and I think I might well add
“pompous” and “bombast.”
Is this whole thing just opening me up
for third-party HIPA violations?
Never have I ever
felt such
a mundane surrealism
than when I scheduled my semen
analysis to test
my sterility. Book
an appointment, collect
ejaculate in a cup,
and drive
across town
within an hour,
keeping said cup close
to my person
in order
to maintain the sample
at an ideal temp
between 70 and 100℉.
Hand over the sample
with a handful
of paperwork. Await
results and in three days
discuss said results
with doctor. Scratch

that: results came in
via text in
fact, reading thus: “Hello,
we received your analysis and
you are now sterile.” Quick
sign-off and there you go.

​

//

​

Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum
Ejaculate, jizz, spunk, cum:
the rub? My medication
makes achieving
orgasm difficult. I confess
I went off my copious
SSRIs for a spell
when I needed results, but what
a silly game. When I’m off meds
I feel everything
more deeply and starkly but also
as if underwater, where things
move slowly and I
sense I am numb.
Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum.
It's probably my
dissociating. Sorry if
you read this and become
unsettled, sweetie.
I was keeping close
tabs on myself.
Confession Part II (Hi, Usher):
I really can’t wait
to get back to level
with my meds. I know I’ve been
irritable. I’ve had some of ye olde
dark thoughts. Get real down
on myself. The shame and shaming and
self-shaming. There’ve been times
where I’ve craved a drink. Big
no-no. That’s a different book, but
suffice it to say I took it
to heart in rehab
when we made an idol
of our sobriety,
that part of us that, if we don’t
make it our top
priority, we may actually lose

everything and everyone
we have. And so I picture
my recovery like a kitten
towards which I’m cautious
due to my cute-aggression.
It must be protected, fragile
as it is,
but strong and resilient
too. I don’t enjoy playing
fast and loose
with it; this going off-
script has been
a calculated risk, because
there was a job
to do and that job
was getting off
into a plastic cup.

​

//

​

A few times these last
few months
we’ve mentioned
how this little
one’s our last, being
fourth and all,
all boys to boot,
and we’re met
with the occasional response,
“Well, you never know…”
with a wink
and I let it
slide. A small
but not insignificant
part of me
does want, in drippy
smugness, to say
just how much I actually do know,
though. Except
my scars have healed. A sleight
of hand, a disappearing trick,
by which any would-be
possible kids
get shown the door or
are led into a room
that gets, by the second, more
cramped.

​

//

​

Reading up
in the early days
post-op
on sperm granuloma
as one does
and I guess
those painful lumps
of leaked spunk
just get smaller
and smaller as
the immune system
does its thing and whisks
the fellas
into dissolution. Simple
as pie. I don’t understand
how it all happens, and
it sounds like nonsense.
Real crazy shit.
Like,
there’s sperm leaking
into my ball sack
and just hanging
out for a while, a group
of guys chilling
in a sauna facing
their future post-
bachelor party.

​

//

​

I’m mulling over
what this is, if it offers
anything to anyone: I’m looking
under the proverbial hood
at this aesthetic engine gaining
speed. To a certain
extent, this can’t be anything
but self-congratulatory
(Forgive me, masturbatory),
though I can’t help hoping
there’s something
here. Some sign of life.
Had the idea
of this while in one
of many
school pickup lines
and to send excerpts of this out
in submissions called
“snippets.”
I warred against myself
regarding the merits of being
so on the nose
and too cutesy
but fuck it
I find it
funny and over
the top so I think
I’ll do it. My default
setting is reserved
and subtle so I’m pushing
against that impulse. This is
an exercise in frankness
and whether it measures up
to scrutiny, to sterility, or else.