While we await the “BAD”-themed issue of PRISM international to return from the printer, our poetry editor, Shazia Hafiz Ramji, shares a poem from the forthcoming issue, 56.3. Read “Ball Twins” by Billeh Nickerson, just in time for that perplexing and funny time of the month: National Poetry Month.

Ball Twins

Billeh Nickerson

I sometimes wonder if penises
are like snow flakes
in that no two penises
are exactly the same.

That can’t be said
about balls though,
as I once met a man
who had my identical balls,

which made us uncomfortable
until we realized
they must have been quadruplets
separated at birth.

Now our balls call
on Christmas and birthdays,
correspond via snail mail
just like pen pals.

This past Valentine’s Day,
my balls receive a card:
a jubilant squirrel exclaiming
I’m nuts about you! 

Billeh Nickerson’s most recent collection, Artificial Cherry, was nominated for the City of Vancouver Book Award. He had the pleasure of editing Prism international in 2002. He’s currently working on Valley: A Poetry Anthology, a collection he’s co-editing with Renee Sarojini Saklikar.