By Kathleen Fogarty    

I’m not the woman wearing the black dress in the restaurant sipping a glass of red wine,

I’m the wife stirring onions and ground beef in the cast iron pan.

I’m not the wispy yoga teacher who can bend thirty ways,

I’m the woman who hauled a bale of hay in the cold rain yesterday.

The literate men who write poems about the French women they chase

-The ones who have students who idolize them-

Once had wives who put pasta into boiling water

And poured the whole mess over a metal colander, and served it with clam sauce because

The husbands preferred it over tomato.

And the ones who notice every little hair on the head of a woman,

How it floats like a flower petal in the summer night

Once had mothers who made them chocolate cakes and cinnamon rolls,

Perspiring in their summer kitchens.

The young man whose girlfriend is slim and beautiful and smart and quirky-

Does he notice the way her mouth turns down after she speaks?

Or what color mascara she uses to make her lashes seem longer?

Or what jokes make her laugh, or not?

And the middle aged man who works with tools and shovels, whose wife is past fifty,

Will he notice the way she smells just after she washes her hair? Or before?

Some men turn their heads in a restaurant when a beautiful woman walks past their table

And their wives notice.

And men will say they notice anyone, any age or shape.

But they are telling little lies.

I am not the woman wearing the black dress in the restaurant sipping a glass of red wine

I am wearing low rise black jeans,

But my pajama bottoms are sticking out the top because today is so cold

And I had to go out to bring fresh water to the chickens in the barn.