What Men Do

I watched the city collapse from my window

Molten embers and charred roofs

Whole worlds reduced to ash

Erected flags forgetting the earth 

that held them first

I thought of you and how you parted my hair

Combed through lavender and honey

Carefully wound each curl around your finger

Romance traditionally reserved for sonnets 

Witnessed by my bathroom sink

And of my friend and how she asked

Me to touch the silk on her blouse

Explained how her love chose it not for the fit

But for the feel

Comforted by how it would rest on her skin

When he could not

I thought of my father perched like

Raphael, skin drying under 

the fluorescent light of a cold hospital corridor 

waiting to walk my mother home 

And of my grandfather who repented 

For a decade and then some 

Tears gathered at the corners of his eyes

Reliving a lifetime of tender moments left to curdle

If I had had more time before 

The sound of fire swelled from the floor

And the walls boiled around me

I’d collect the collective efforts of men

Line them up side by side

And shoot them

Make them stay home and lament

While blood pools outside

The tea between them turned cold

Ears pressed to another’s lips

Their eyes wide waiting

To hear what women do

When other women aren’t around