in my childhood in the '50s
adults were mostly circumspect
when it came to naming names
with words such as penis beyond the pale
my brothers and i had little men
or tailors (pins and needles!)
they sat cross-legged between our thighs
as we sat cross-legged in school
we didn't have scrota in those days
nor testicles i'm afraid
and balls was verboten in family circles
goolies, plums ditto
there were no permitted words
for those particular appurtenances
unless one was unlucky enough
to require the services of the doctor
for problems with the waterworks
in which case one might overhear
terms from an arcane language
as indecipherable as a prescription
we persevered with euphemisms
which were prone to stand to attention
during lengthy sermons
or under the covers at night
my sisters had nothing to speak of at all
their urine (what shall we call it?) issued from
an elongated dimple as nameless as that place
whence newborn babies came
my daughter at four years wrapped in a towel
reclines in an armchair after her bath
all the parts of her body have names
forehead, breastbone, tummy button, toe
even the internal organs
beneath the warm and fragrant skin
(when she was born i saw the the midwife
washing the marbled placenta in the bath
flipping the disc like pizza dough, holding it up
translucent before the bare lightbulb)
delicately she pries into the downy
folds of her vulva (what shall we call it?)
with a clean pink finger she indicates her clitoris
eyes wide as if she has discovered something
what's this? she says, what's this?
she plays with it occasionally
she says it is nice and tickly
she has no sense of shame
she calls her vulva her vulva
her mother calls her own her cunt
but that won't do for infant school
and clitoris is a definite no-no
we'd have case-workers turning up mob-handed
with documents in briefcases
it's a grey area
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