I Lost My Penis

Mother thrust me from her womb with ten fingers,
two eyes and one penis, which my stomach
rolled over on, hiding. I lost it
to a boy with no penis who wanted
one enough to bet his vagina on,
promising it would be mine if I won. I
asked for his breasts, too, and he demanded
my testicles. I didn’t have the heart to tell him
they weren’t more than leaking flesh and cum-
bersome weights smashing into the bike that held
my baseball bat, soccer ball, boxing gloves
(only dusted by the breeze as I rode and girls who
traded for them with Barbie Dolls). Never breasts
or vagina; those I never had and
wanted to try. We played a game of numbers,
not of chance but of words that trumped and
spilled over each other in a torrent of
digits larger than the one before until
I stumbled, tripping on a D—into Ds—on
a step forward he caught me in his ten fingers,
staring at me with two eyes and one penis.