John said “Lookit this” and took from a bag
only a book with a pale blue battered cover
and I said, “So what? Is this some kind of a gag?
Then he showed me the title: Lady Chatterley’s Lover,
and opened it up and pointed his finger at words
which I’d never seen in print except on walls
and some not even there—with a leer and a smirk
John said, “Wow, this book’s really got balls!”
He let me read it, and parts I read more than once,
sometimes pressing it down to repress the result—
those two in the nude doing what I’d never done,
always feeling a penis some kind of fault—
and after I’d slipped the secret back to John
it was harder than ever not to be adult.