Your shirt’s just a joke, mate,
with its baseball chick, her spine
canted at us Brokeback style,
as if we’ll all want her too,
her G-string run, cleft-nectarine arse
and tits like a blow-up doll’s —
no breasts or buttocks here,
anything to do with a woman’s body
has to be said as if you’re cussing her out,
and what’s wrong with her, anyway?
It’s freedom of speech, you say,
that’s why you wear her here,
opposite the café’s toy box, ice blocks,
the kids’ ride-ons and tyre swings.

So you’ll get it, at some level, won’t you,
if you ever have daughters
and I serve them, or teach them,
when they’re five, or ten, or eighteen
and I wear on my V-neck shirt
no, actually, not a muscle-ridged jock
with splayed legs; lying back,
erect cock crowing ‘Ready!’
like a cooked turkey timer;
but a man with no genitals,
Ken-doll neuter, just a sweet
blind tuck, nowhere
to hurt and enter either,
and he’s holding, what,
a sheaf of papers, a child’s hand,
an iPad, a pile of laundry,
a home-made meal,
a book, an Allan key,
a look on his face as if he’s deep
in full and close conversation.

But your girls will know which side
they’ve got to butter your bread on,
know it as well as the swift hard strop
from the back of your hand,
so you’ll be able to brush the image off
as just some bit of cunt’s fun;
a few women might want their men
attentive, competent, and rapeless,
but we all know real life’s
not like that, so what love
lost, what harm
have you done?