I do not believe men speak to smart women
as women.
They talk to us as men,
as nameless faceless hommes d’affairs:
we are leaning against
the conference desk,
in a (power) suit, with pin-tacks in our
neck and the unfortunate
addition of long hair, breasts, adultery.
The young adult novels lied: there is nothing
sexy about intellectual
conversations
under night skies, your converse crossing
his black jeans, his eyes milky and strange.
He is not looking at you
like a girl:
he is talking politics, science-fiction,
the death of pop punk, the death of mortality,
the odd historical significance of anti-emo
riots in Mexico, in 2008,
(it’s critical theory, really)—
he is talking like they do in books,
but you are no longer a girl.
there is no spring awakening, no raw
flickering in your mouth,
you do not feel silly and happy;
you do not blush.
Intelligent women will always have
too many galaxies,
but they should, at least, be allowed to feel
like women
and not as men masquerading.
We are the brilliant ones:
we can take both love
and war;
we are waiting at windows,
waiting like romantics,
letting the boys draw clouds
in our heads, letting our heads
have clouds.
the last pavilion 