Some Girls

for Andrea Vargas

The risk is moral death each time we act,

And every act is whittled by the blade

Of history, pared down to brutal fact,

The fact: we only want what we degrade.

No beauty in the glass makes our loss good,

No hero in the wings can take the stage,

The clash of blood at war with its own blood

Intoxicates us with colossal rage.

A cold beer and the young moon’s tender horns

Are shining on the table where we spar

Like women gladiators, bred and born

To wear our father’s breastplates, greaves and scars.

There’s something not quite right here. We can’t talk

Like some girls, who’d say, “Hell, the bastards broke our hearts.”

We are a different kind of tough; we hawk

Our epic violence in bleak bars, in bed, in art.

Suzanne Doyle

© 1992 Suzanne J. Doyle.  Used by permission.