From Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

 "You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on."

That kind of girl

I wish I was the kind of girl who'd taken a left instead of a right and ended up in a different town. Perhaps if I was another kind of girl, I'd meet you in bar and I'd tell you that I thought you were pretty, even though I meant you were handsome. I might let you buy me a drink. I might kiss you in the bathroom, pressed against the stall. If I was that girl, I'd write my name in sharpie on your hand, only this time, you'd call.

The Happy Hour Wolf

Leaning in heavily,

ham-fisting his lowball like a vice,

he drops his wilted butt on the floor between us.

Smoke oozing from between his pointy teeth,

he licks his juicy bourbon mustache

and smiles hungrily,

"How about a bite to eat?"

and immediately,

I'm sure he means me.

Mothers and Daughters

What's a girl to do about her mother,

when she's the apple of her mother's eye?

Does she make her mother squirm

by exposing the worm,

or does she help her mother deny?

~ Jo-Ann Krenstan