I wore a hand-me-down jacket for years,
given to me with a hole already in its pocket.
Nobody knew, even as my hands shook from the cold.

I used to touch my jacket’s soft innards all the time.
The cotton was compacted
and wouldn’t come apart easily

no matter how much I “accidentally”
let my hand slip in the curious hole
to touch, over and over again,

irresistibly, as if exploring
imagined organ meats
naturally came first among
the exotic perversions,
living in the tide pools
of childhood masturbation.