Entry 4, riffing on Kim Addonizio’s
“What Do Women Want?”
What Do Men Want
I want a woman in a red dress,
I want her flimsy and cheap,
preferably a redhead, a lady Lazarus
with a sign around her neck:
Tear this sign from me.
I want to drive down
the street in a truck rumbling
mufflerless with her, her noticing
the bowler-hatted boys and the Hispanic
women with handfuls of cottons,
taking note for some future fix
she might need. Then I sling
her from the cab into a BUDGET INN
but the BUDGET has been effaced,
on my bony shoulder, and I lay her
down as payment. I want her
to unlook at me—to peer past me
on the lousy ____ INN bedspread,
as if I my face obscures the image of God.
I have not found him yet, and will
not find her in her red dress. Some days
with the broom and vacuum when cleaning
Room 15 or 16 with Lysol, after affairs,
I find satin underthings—
that I am obligated to trash
as per protocol—and wonder if the lady
who left them would care to be buried in them.
I want her flimsy and cheap,
preferably a redhead, a lady Lazarus
with a sign around her neck:
Tear this sign from me.
I want to drive down
the street in a truck rumbling
mufflerless with her, her noticing
the bowler-hatted boys and the Hispanic
women with handfuls of cottons,
taking note for some future fix
she might need. Then I sling
her from the cab into a BUDGET INN
but the BUDGET has been effaced,
on my bony shoulder, and I lay her
down as payment. I want her
to unlook at me—to peer past me
on the lousy ____ INN bedspread,
as if I my face obscures the image of God.
I have not found him yet, and will
not find her in her red dress. Some days
with the broom and vacuum when cleaning
Room 15 or 16 with Lysol, after affairs,
I find satin underthings—
that I am obligated to trash
as per protocol—and wonder if the lady
who left them would care to be buried in them.
No comments:
Post a Comment