she asks what he does all day.
how to tell the doctor’s mean
nurse that he spends afternoons
alone, in a wooden chair 
placed on a flat stone
just beyond the sweeping
curve of the stream’s current

confined to the latex 
undertone of the exam room
belly up on a starchy sheet
she squeezes his left nut
with her right hand…barks
turn your head and cough,
enough is enough
he, as he sometimes does, leaves
his body, flies away to his chair
by the surging creek

nurse ratchet exits
and the long wait for the doctor
begins, he sleeps and dreams
that he’s a guardian angel
watching his younger self splash
naked into icy water shouting
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
he wants to whisper Stop
into his own youthful ear
but knows, that even in a dream,
he cannot

he sees himself showing off
to a young woman he barely knows
her perfectly round breasts 
her red shorts damp from his spray
he’s pulling her arm 
she’s shaking her head NO
and yanks her arm back
she wont take his damn test
and she’s not
standing on that river bank
for a minute longer
waiting for him to grow up