Urinals

Matthew Yeager

Poetry

March 1, 2021

URINALS

Vitreous, oft-white, wall-mounted, what runs

flavid down each steep face collects in a font

you'd never dip your fingers in. Public things,

out of place in homes, their torso-like forms

gleam in rows beneath bright humming tubes

in windowless rooms behind doors that lack

knobs. Nearly half the first world knows all

too irksomely the subtle variations of urinals,

what vast differences can be made by height,

style, proximity, number, partitions. (I write

only in memory of feelings.) The greater half

turns on heel, flees at the sight of them, fresh

ly aghast at their peculiarity. Like an algebra

problem whose answer is a violin, the urinal's

fanciful shape is arrived into using a rationale

of brutish functionality. This makes it lovely.

Its glazed Art-Deco curves trace their origins

to the propensity for male equipment to drip,

drizzle, spray in a rake. Herein lies a urinal's

quiddity: At one, you must perform. At one,

you can’t miss. You're shooting into a barrel

of fish. You can close eyes, can nod or rock

back your head, stare at the ceiling, whatever

you need to still your mind into the necessary

zero from which a flow can begin. Flanked

close by grown men, it is

often not so

easy

Contributor(s)

Matthew Yeager

Matthew Yeager's poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Bennington Review, Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, and elsewhere. His long poems have been included in several anthologies, including Best American Poetry 2005 and 2010. "A Big Ball of Foil in a Small NY Apartment," his micro-budget short film, was an official selection at eleven film festivals in 2009-2010, picking up three awards. Other distinctions include the Barthelme Prize in short prose, fellowships to MacDowell and Yaddo, and inclusion in Oprah magazine’s “Top 30 Love Poems of All-Time.” The co-curator of the KGB Monday Night Poetry Series since 2011, Yeager worked in the NYC catering industry for fourteen fucking years in various capacities: truck driver, waiter, sanitation helper, sanitation captain, bartender, bar captain, lead captain, producer. His first book, Like That (Forklift Books, 2016) received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly. His second book, Porm, is in the can and will be out at some point. He is currently a doctoral fellow at the University of Cincinnati, where he lives with the poet Chelsea Whitton and their cats Merle and Dolly.

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Urinals