From the collection Just About Love
Girls’ toys
These girls have no mothers;
the mothers are with the boys.
With the brothers who can never
get dressed or pull boots on themselves.
Mothers bear daughters,
push them before mirrors
so that they might be even more beautiful
and become even slimmer
and marry sons, themselves.
Girls have ponies and Barbies;
they love their own mothers
as they hug them to their chests.
Trotting into daycare on the heels
of mothers fed up with their crying daughters,
they hope to find their own princesses
in the drawer labeled:
“Girls’ Toys”.
Inside the drawer of girls’ toys,
they discover themselves,
because their mothers are cocked guns,
plastic trucks, robots, and soldiers
who once similarly hoped to find love
from the dolls with fluttering eyelashes.
Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard
my ideal man
I’ve even seen him
on the cover of his own book
his poems are wild
I’m in love with Sam,
should I write to him?
But what would I write?
I’ll say I’m turning seventeen soon.
I’ll say this is a poor and muddy place
where Valio yoghurt just hit the shelves,
and on TV, they say women need
to cherish their fatherland more:
And someone died again
when the temperature dropped below freezing:
But how would Sam respond?
Would he go silent and stop writing poetry,
or would he pull his coat tight around him,
make coffee,
and keep writing?