The Territory

by Robley Wilson

A traveling salesman stands under the warm flow

of the shower. He is letting the water play

over him, leaning back in a corner of the stall

so that the spray teases the tip of his penis.

The penis grows. This is its answer to everything,

the salesman thinks—it gets carried away so:

if you touch it, it calls blood to itself and grows;

if you remember a woman who loved you once when

you were learning, it points to the past and grows;

if you go to a movie and the hero opens the blouse

of the heroine with clumsy fingers, it grows;

they say when the murderer drops through the trap

of the gallows, it grows and bursts its seed.

What does the penis know except pleasure? and if

nothing is happening to arouse it, it pretends

nothing exists. The salesman groans, and holds

the penis up to meet the water's force. Now

the spray is hotter and the penis is beside itself.

Between the friction of the shower and the heat

of the water and an image from the girlie magazines

on the bed that dances in the salesman's mind

the penis is losing control. What else is new?

What is the reach of pleasure's territory if not

the salesman's hot, drenched fist big as life?