Never the woman,
always the other woman.
She-poets have sung of it since
they first gave words
to the wet knot of their hearts.

The consolation prize, the late-comer
who must be the one to wash his
***** hands. Not a goddess but
the amazon who presses on his
body’s weakest points. The villainess.

The other woman has no power.
He doesn’t need to know her name,
her fears, which books made her cry as
a girl. He already has his golden idol,
but he wants a clay vessel on the side.

He doles her out careful smiles under
pinkblue bar-lights or in smoky kitchens.
He tells her yes you’re beautiful
but I’ve got a better one at home still
can I see the shape you make in my bed?

And she is hopeful and lost
but finds his arm and lets herself be led.
Never the woman, but a girl who
plays games in the mud, dirties her dress,
blacks out her face, her soiled lips.

And women speak of the other woman
like she is a crow above their doors.
Watching them make their love
through greedy eyes while
nursing her barbed and tangled heart.