Fresh Men
By Caroline Hayduk
i hadn’t touched the steering wheel of a car yet
that summer emily and i were blowing up condoms
to make balloons out of watching them swell up
sex was still funny still far away
Ii tasted the slick rubber took pleasure in it inflating
the first time—
it is in the woods behind my house propped up on a cold rock
after two weeks of feeling stiff denim against me the demand cast by a closed zipper
i still prayed the rosary because i thought it could save someone
i was so afraid of god and my own vagina that i refused to look at pictures of either
i always knew childhood would end all the ideas
i had about sex and love came from the nuns and a tabernacle i couldn’t imagine the mother of god giving h-js in the woods could she still call herself a virgin then?
he told me i had to
you can’t just hold it
and i counted twenty seconds in my head
Caroline Hayduk (she/her) is a queer poet, editor, and educator living in Scranton, PA. She has an MA and MFA from Wilkes University. She is deeply passionate about weird earrings and thrifted clothes. She has been published in The Penn Review and South Florida Poetry Journal.