If a boy doesn’t fall in love
with his teacher,
she isn’t much of a teacher
and he isn’t much of a boy.
This is doubly true
when teachers are nuns,
with nothing but that face
like a mask of skin
and the shapes of bodies
never rounded by childbirth.
Sister Teresa was the worst.
In every class, fifteen boys
would punch their ticket
to hell, the ticket located
on the zipper of their trousers.
My grades suffered so much
once she kept me after school
and made me kneel on a ruler
over an hour until I saw God,
the razor wire between pleasure
and pain, how one follows the other,
crucifixion before resurrection.
Blasphemously I thought of the penis
as a little Jesus, being revived
every three days, hours, or minutes,
and my ruler as a skinny cross.
The pain from my knees
screwed upward into my groin,
into my chest and finally my eyes.
My tears came freely then;
and as Sister Teresa stood over me,
releasing me from my torment,
my face fell level with her hips,
just beneath her breasts,
and I thanked her for her mercy
but still refused to stand.
