Manhood

Sherman tried to show the extent of his manhood

by insisting his wife wear the pants in the family.

This allowed his manhood to extend

well below his knees, wrinkled as the head of a vulture,

and then coil damply beneath him

as he settled onto the porch steps to read the paper.

We’d be more inclined to apologize for that image

were it not for the fact the buzzard head

was at one time attached to the body of a snake

replete with a simile evoking crinkled hosiery

and thus this is the mild version and contains

significantly fewer genital-animal parallels

which editors do not typically recommend

for inclusion in general-interest publications.

Why there was only one sturdy pair of pants

between the two of them remains a mystery.

And that those pants were stitched of leather

with supple creases worked into their knees

and embroidered detailing on the pockets

is perhaps as close as we will get to the reason

for their existence in the first place. At this point

it would probably be wiser to return to Sherman

reading on the porch, nude from the waist down.

Yet nude would be an overstatement

given the pair of tire-tread sandals he is wearing

which of course have the effect of making him

even nuder—which is not a word—but which

we nonetheless include for purposes of double entendre,

just as we conjured sandals to amplify his nudity.

And look, there is his unnamed wife doing some

gritty task, mussing the knees of those disturbing pants

as she vigorously trowels the root-base of her rosebush.

I’m sweating like a pig in these trousers, she mutters,

not to him exactly, though there is no one else there.

He is so long in responding it seems the moment

might pass when the newspaper rustles and he says,

Fine . . . give them here . . . I’ll wear the damn things,

sighing like a beleaguered king who must wear pants

he does not like, rank with the sweat of his wife,

shoveling his soft flesh into that leather that pinches

like church shoes on a child’s feet in August.