What Women Want

Today, I want to be a surgeon or a waitress, so I can take something wrong & make it right, whether it's eggs-over-easy or a spastic pancreas.

Today, I want to have pralines & whiskey cocktails on the front porch, wearing a red dress & mules.

Today, I want for everything to slow down & soften & blur & grow slightly green, as if we are underwater.

Today, I want to be the kind of woman who does not gasp at the sight of something moldy in the refrigerator.

Today, I want the goddamn telephone to be as silent as Yorick's skull, for I am not capable of infinite jest.

***

Today I have opened all the windows so I can smell the newly-minted April air (shit, that's a brand name for something, isn't it? An air conditioner, perhaps? A refrigerator?). I wish I could block the sound of those clumps of identical platinum-moms that stand on the street corners in their capri pants & sandals gossiping & stopping to yell "NO" every couple of minutes. I am trying to pretend they are just really, really noisy crows. As if no-no-no-no-no were some kind of rare & wonderful birdcall. This might be more effective if I visualized a blonder species of birds. I would prefer living here if the crow::person ratio were higher in favor of crows. Yes, there would be more poop on the roof of my car, but quite possibly less overall unpleasantness. This would be nice. Nevertheless, there is no denying that the day is just spring-lovely & the air licks your skin like a velvety tongue & the chattering of insects is rather pleasant. I am wearing a skirt. I am drinking iced tea. The house is full of books & there is a huge pineapple on the kitchen counter that I plan to disassemble shortly. Also, there are teenage boys on go-carts & dirt bikes & I think this is a good kind of noise, because it's happy & utterly unselfconscious & doesn't seek to deaden the world around them but to enliven it.

Last night I dreamt of a party crowded with everyone I had known as a child, but had forgotten as an adult. The people were all quite androgynous but I recognized them as they approached, the names & faces flooding back as if they'd never been lost in the first place. I find androgyny to be a particularly attractive state, in which beauty is de-gendered and recreated as something other than what we are told it ought to be. When I woke up, the dream was still gathered at the brain-edge of wonderful. I cannot even begin to isolate the dream symbols & to pick it apart, as I prefer to let it simply be what it is & nothing more. Sometimes this is necessary.


Today, I want somebody to tell me it's okay to use the phrase "grisly corpse" in a poem about something beautiful. I want to wear an unsuitable shade of lipstick. I want my hair to stand on end & still look amazing. I want to overcome my fear of honeybees & talk to them on hot afternoons & find them charming.