Feminae cursus honorum

[shenbuv]

(c) tantdem_bike:

66 SF MD ISO 60-70 SM EQUAL


fifteen,
she lusts for an equal, a boy:
shy and bookish, hairless-chested,
good at math. what innocent joy!
she never got
her wish.
or confessed it.

in her twenties,
she fancies strangers.
sleeps with somebody named Abdullah,
then, a Groton-and-Yalie enlisted ranger.
equally strange,
but the latter --
duller.

thirtysomething,
she needs a savior --
in shining eyespecs, he is kind --
from ugly marriage, from crazy behavior --
she looked, but
she could hardly
find.

a decade later,
she gains some ground;
seeks a man of substance, a provost, a dean,
to live and die in a college town!
but all her prospects
were married,
or mean.

at fifty two,
she abandons that plan:
she works for WHO, a worthy cause,
and feels she has no time for a man --
with her patients,
her grandkids,
the menopause.

six-O.
her health is fragile now --
too many bottles in her past --
she courts a neighbor who can plough;
but he was crude,
they did not
last.

retired.
she longs for an equal again,
an elderly gent who can drive the RV
and quote from Brodsky and Verlaine.
she'll settle for a
schnauzer,
if need be.