A Woman thinks.
Look, darling, it’s eleven eleven again
and I’m lighting candles for the good ones—
the ones who didn’t turn out to be wolves
after all. Strange, isn’t it? Like finding
pearls in the garbage disposal.
Remember that man who kissed
like he was solving a math problem?
Not him. I mean the other kind:
the ones who know how to touch a woman
like she’s both a bomb and a flower.
I had a husband once. Then twice.
(We all make mistakes, don’t we?)
But I’m talking about the man who comes
to your life like a surgeon with clean hands,
meaning to heal instead of cut.
Let me tell you about desire—
how it sits in your belly like a cat,
purring and purring until you think you’ll die
of wanting. The good ones know this.
They know how to stroke that cat.
At the witching hour, I count them
on my fingers like rosary beads:
the gentle ones, the true ones,
the ones who stayed until morning
and meant it when they said forever.
God’s a woman, I think,
and she’s playing matchmaker tonight,
dealing men like tarot cards
across the kitchen table while we sit here,
drinking wine, blessing the rare ones.
And praying for the fruits of our wombs.