I called you woman yesterday.
Just to see the twitch in your brow
down turn like your mouth.
As if woman was unpalatable.
A second-class flavor
bitter in poor taste.

I thought
What is man to savor?
Why should I relish soft blues
but no tears.
That your sons, distant strangers
familiar only to fragile rages.
Why bare the crunching numbers
the ever present, gnawing hunger
For bigger, for better, to be the 'go getter'
pernicious under each and every letter.

All that you are I can understand
Except the favor of that dish.
Truly, is 'woman' such anguish
unthinkable to withstand,
even in the secondhand.

© Fae Hilscher