I promise no bitterness
reading the final report: One million men and counting surveyed
it’s official — men at any age prefer women in their 20’s
my question: Will you still wheel him to his prostate appointments in heals?
Even if it rains and he gets grumpy because dinner is late?
What will you read when he goes to bed at 8pm? Surely not something by Vladimir Nabokov?
I recall being 21, walking back from a party alone
wolf whistles in the dark, that prickling sensation at my neck
I imagine a deer feels similarly when hunted
the delight of my youth on their lips, like salve for their own decline
in those days I wore a perfume, that doesn’t smell right on me anymore
just as many things fit differently, age out
including the need for approval
I still possess a weakness for older women
the way they don’t know what they stir, like a vintage cocktail
crossing curved ankles, brushing hair from foreheads
the certitude of their years like a veiled fascinator
having been told since 29, they are no longer viable
nor worthy of undivided masculine gaze
I wish I could taint the water with a potion
that would for a day, render all women lesbians
so that for that one day, they could revel
in how another woman reacts when they walk laughing into a room
faded jeans, white shirt, curly hair blown misshapen
forgot to wear silver rings today, Chapstick in abundance
spilt contents of purse, blushing cheeks, long lunch
a good red, leather seats, made you laugh over Trofie al Pesto
twisted in your fork, index finger, hair color of caramel
we lie together in the hotel room later that evening
your skin electric, quivering, in dusk cooling sweat, soft sighs
talking until tomorrow has already denied us rest
the unexpected smile of being seen, desired
not settled for, but chosen, pursued wholeheartedly
touched deeply, slowly, knowledgably; with intention
the night bloom of memory reddening edges
then if you must … go on, heterosexual once more
fodder for a dictate; a gender with youth behind their eyes
hoping men may at: 50, 60, 70 and beyond
find a woman over 29 viable, enticing, first choice
for their flaccid embrace, pills for that, blue and red, mail-order
it’s an irony not more of us are born queer, wishing to
tip the velvet in cities without prescription, sell-by-dates, falsehood
I’m used to it by now —
lesbians are 1 or 2 percent at any given time, nature’s humor
left-handers wildly outnumber us, even have their own scissors
the heaving rooms of women, full cheeked and smiling
not at me, not for me, not at me, not for me
but the largess cockerel in the room
inflated on himself, confident, bandy-legged, he preens and struts
settling on a tight-chested 20-something in gilded corner
ignoring PhDs, ex-dancers, the poets, scientists, metallurgists
who invariably curl inward and detest their ageing skin
just as I raise a glass to the vintage of older women, uncounted
just as I hear her say she’s given up on love, is buying a Pomeranian
I wish I were as bold as the blustering man who leers
down the lurex top of his ex-wife’s-daughters-best-friend
knowing full well she’s just graduated with honors from Penn
if I had that madness I’d grab you, whether you said
you didn’t like girls or not, slapped my cheeks rouge
whether you said, I’ve put that all behind me
nowadays I crochet and take long baths in patchouli
in many ways I’m a-sexual, preferring murder-mystery radio shows
I find after menopause there is less to be excited about, I don’t get the urge
I’d find the very same hotel room I lay in
at 25 watching her shy away from full light
wondering if she shaved all the way up and how
I could send her flowers the next day at work, the confused
language of lesbians in those days, no rule book
just instinct, courage, fingers, lips, intention
when all I wanted to do was open the curtains
and let her see herself, the way I did
beautiful at any age.
Amazing. I was absolutely enthralled. I had to read it twice just to convince myself that it was as fucking fantastic as I believed it to be the first time. Bravo! Bravo!
Amen
This poem left me breathless.
L.E. said it best! <3 Beauty, you struck gold with this one. 🙂
There’s a temptation to try to respond to this beautifully put, and from the dominant point of view of my gender category, painful truth, with some defense of men. I just can’t think of one for those others. I know and see women, even many who are or may be older then me who are beautiful in so many different ways. The beauty is there at any age to see if you look, to hear if you listen. I don’t know how I learned that. Maybe it came from knowing some lesbians in my life. Maybe it rubbed off somehow?
Feeling very, very seen with this one! I think this is a new favorite. 🥰💜💜
Hey, aren’t some scissors bi-sexual ? 🙂 Love this poem. and I think you are magical and have been magical at any age.my friend.
Hehe, i Still Lust
After my Wife, Close
To 52 Now As Much
After
32 Years Of
Marriage As
i Did At “Hey
19” Yet Anything
To Do With “Sex”
Is What
i Value Her
For Least
That Much
True Love Teaches
Dear Candie For Real
And Why i’ve Never
Even Been Tempted
Ravaged By A 20 Something Grinding
Dance
i Didn’t Even
Ask For By
Two Twenty
Something
Women Then
As i Approached
60 Years-Old Before
Covid-19 Shut The
Dance
Hall
Down Yes
There Is
Temporary
Heat And Lifelong
Warmth That Lasts
Eternally
Now i Am
Surely Not
Just A “Masturbatory”
Tool To Use Besides
That
Poetry
From The
HeART
SPiRiT
SoUL
Is A Much
Larger Turn
On For me
Than
The
Short
Term
Heat
Of A Grinding Dance
Although It’s True
Mother
Nature
Is No Lie Either😊🔥
And To Be Clear Young
Women Are Exercising
Their Freedoms Still
Leaving
The
Dance
Hall With
The Same
Girl Friends
They Came With
Indeed Nature Changes
Culturally This Way
Too
Where
Women
Do Rule The
World As it Changes too
Somedays On Top oF iT ALL🏝
You totally get it – always have. I am not knocking men of course, just the male-gaze and how for many, this is the sum of things. It doesn’t effect me or many I know but it’s real – you on the other hand are a glorious exception to every rule my brother
I SO appreciate YOU and thank you for writing this and reading this and supporting me. We just need to stand with each other and support each other through this – life – and we’ll all be better for it. Glad someone appreciates my take on this. Thank you dearling.
You are right. I didn’t put a ‘this doesn’t apply to all men’ at the end or beginning of this poem because I knew any man who knew me would automatically know I’m not whitewashing – though of course if you take it out of context I am. I understand the temptation as I would do the same. It is just the dominant view and not what every man (or woman) would think or feel. There is a painful truth to it but there are huge exceptions. It doesn’t surprise me a wit that you are one of those exceptions my friend – this I knew and this is why you are the wonderful human being you are. I wish it would rub off on others. I don’t know that it’s the lesbian connection but that sounds like a cool bar doesn’t it?
I so, so appreciate you dearest C.
Thank you lovely one
Right? 😉 (snicker)
Coming from a poet and writer I ADORE this is … well you know. (Thank you).
Hell my friend – you’re one of the most alive people I know and I lust after your wife too! he he – I hear you and you know in what vein this is written and I know you get it – and you’re right too – we all all – as you say, the dance. xoxo
SMiles Dear Candie it’s
So True We aRe Only NoW
As Young As We aRe aLiVe
Inhaling Peace Exhaling LoVE iN
JoY
oF LiGHT
How Different
The World Will
Be Naked Enough
Whole Complete
One Body One
Blood of
Love
Lusting
For Every
BREaTHE
61 Has Never
Felt Younger
SoUL HeART
SPiRiT Ruling
All In All Love
Within
The
Dance
And Song
Free in All
Flow Now New☺️❤️
Always, dear! <3
It does. As for the rubbing off, we do what we can and sometimes it does.
I’m surrounded by heterosexuals and rarely gel with homosexuals but that said, in my mind there are isles of lesbians teaching me our history. I think sometimes this must be how it was for women back in the turn of the century. If you have no identifier, you self-identify and a part of you goes inside. Who knows those thoughts? Where do they go? I remember watching SISTER MY SISTER and Cement Garden – and wondering at the locked worlds within – I always find those the most interesting and for all the public vomiting of social media I think people still keep those worlds mostly within them, because what we really want to say, we don’t and what we don’t need to say, we do.
I honestly have been thinking about it and I was grossly unfair. Of COURSE scissors are bi. How thoughtless of me 😉
There is the challenge of art – the things we want to say that either aren’t accepted or for which there are no direct words. What do people do with thoughts, feelings, experience that have no names in their time and place?
I think they have to try – like even if it’s in a weird way – to express it. That’s why I like a lot of experimental art/writing I guess. Even music. What’s the weirdest book you have read?
The weirdest book? Oh, my, so many books. I think that for weird it is hard to beat The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castinadas. Whether it is accurate reporting or fiction (there are arguments about that) it is a mind bender. Then, there’s the I Ching and trying to comprehend the logic of it’s patterns and interpretations.
Not me dear poet. Give me a confident lady. I believe, women are the strongest and best in their thirties. Men also. We had learn what we need and what we are. Need a kind person to make us smile. A person that make us smile. We will love a lifetime.
Women in their 20s? I am not so sure. When I was in my 20’s, I liked them. Now….?
Me too 😉
Good choices. Very.
Thanks. I think I can add one, part of my library since 1959; “Ten Ever-Lovin’, Blue-Eyed Years with Pogo” by Walt Kelly