WHERE WAS IT.(Poem)

 
   Maybe it lived in a canopic jar 
   on her bureau, among the perfume bottles concocted 
   of crystals cut open to the heart, 
   or maybe it was down in the basement, 
   behind the furnace, almost the size 
   of the furnace, dressed in a lace of fuel-dust-- 
   where was it, my mother's penis? Maybe 
   it was partway up the chimney, in the niche 
   of a fallen-out brick, herma of the hearth, 
   did it glow in concealed glory when there was 
   a fire. I hope when the Saint descended 
   he gave it little nuts and candies 
   at its feet, and a night-blue cloak to wear on the 
   cold dawns of summer. I don't think it was 
   ever in the kitchen, not even in the long-handled-tools 
   drawer, with the spatula 
   and baster and the ...