Vasectomy

By Philip Appleman b. 1926 Philip Appleman

After the steaming bodies swept

through the hungry streets of swollen cities;

after the vast pink spawning of family

poisoned the rivers and ravaged the prairies;

after the gamble of latex and

diaphragms and pills;

I invoked the white robes, gleaming blades

ready for blood, and, feeling the scourge

of Increase and Multiply, made

affirmation: Yes, deliver us from

complicity.

And after the precision of scalpels,

I woke to a landscape of sunshine where

the catbird mates for life and

maps trace out no alibis—stepped

into a morning of naked truth,

where acts mean what they really are:

the purity of loving

for the sake of love.

Source: New and Selected Poems 1956-1996 (University of Arkansas Press, 1996)

Biography

Poet, novelist, editor, and Darwin expert Philip Appleman is known for his biting social commentary and masterful command of form. The author of numerous volumes of poetry, three novels, and half a dozen collections of prose, Appleman’s range of subject matter includes Darwin, politics, morality, and sex. Art Seidenbaum in the Los Angeles Times described Appleman’s second novel, Shame the Devil (1981) as entertaining and . . .

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