Testicle

My Father Loses a Testicle

                             Spring 1994

On Monday, my father has surgery

to remove a large prostate stone

and his left testicle, chronically inflamed—

he tells me this on the phone.

For a year, he has peed blood and carried

the tender weight of himself in his clothes.

That day, he will wake at five

for the long drive, before the sun breaks

the honed edge of the dark, surgical pines.

We forget—the spectacle of mortality

closes ahead and behind. The corn fields

wash away and turn to stone;

the quick creeks harden with silt

and debris—we look, but cannot find

the places of origin any more.