MOTHER caught me masturbating
She knew something was up, she said,
when all the figs on the fig trees would explode
every time I bathed.

I won't tell your father, she said
He ain't my real dad, I said
The other one then, she said.
Oh Him, I said, He already knows.

The sullied towel disappeared
until the Middle Ages,
when it was used
to cure asthmatics
until it was locked away
in the Vatican.

Originally published in Aphros.