SF CHRONICLE 2021: Marga Gomez has a profound, lyrical way with metaphor, but her style is so the opposite of artsy-fartsy or pretentious that her literary insights practically sneak in undercover.

With “Spanking Machine” — the first show the Marsh San Francisco has presented in person since the pandemic began — Gomez derives her title from a threat she remembers from grade school, where a so-called “spanking machine” was an unimaginably horrible punishment waiting for bad kids always unseen in the next room.

Gomez weaves that image together with an array of scenes from her life that somehow all make sense together — her first “boyfriend,” before they both came out, as well as their reconnection much later in life; kinky sex; and an ever-present threat of violence.

The spanking machine, it turns out, keeps menacing long after you can no longer get sent to the principal’s office.

“Spanking Machine”: 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, Sept. 17-18. Through Oct. 23. $20-$100. The Marsh, 1062 Valencia St., S.F. 415-282-3055. www.themarsh.org

— Lily Janiak