darling: poems by colleen cosette goodman

idol: poem for ceilidh

Oh, she's the kind of woman men love !
Drippy baby eyes, fat pink lips, and a swell in her jaw.
They'll hang onto her in their ham-fisted poetry, write about her body in clumsy metaphors.
Those boys and their poetry.
They'll pine for her like a mother,
And lay their savage bodies across her's
in the heat of it all.
Girls like her are always appear sweet and demure,
Always soft and truly woman,
Like little dolls in frilly dresses,
With their wide and sprawling and sparkly eyes,
Diamonds in the landscape of their faces.
"Such creatures!" The boys will write.
They'll squash her into boxes, gaze upon her like a child.
I wonder how she is taking it.
Does she curl up at nights and stroke the crown of his head,
Thinking about how she has to take of this boy
Cooped up in a man's body?
Perhaps she sleeps soundly.
Perhaps she likes the adoration.
Some women love being the muse; they revel in it, they paint it across their cheeks.
They think themselves Beatrices or Laura's,
Lay across chaises in beautiful necklaces,
And think about how wonderful it is to be idolized.
Perhaps she cradles him softly, lovingly.
I imagine it as this:
they are curled up on a couch,
her hand in the curls of his hair,
thumb going back and forth,
back and forth.
His arms around her waist, his head on the light breathing of her chest.
The warmth of a mother but the love of a girlfriend,
Finding a chest to fall into and sigh