Dear Matchmakers
You tell me how he could be a good husband
if I could make a man out of him.
It’s a virtue a woman must have,
and a woman’s virtue is a man’s insurance.
You sweet talk about how all he needs for his bad habits
is a good wife to wash it all away,
scrub off the dark past for the real him to sparkle
a wife’s merit is his magic wand.
You let him get a free pass for his past,
while scrutinizing mine to flag me for any folly,
my value is only as good as
the value I would add to him.
You make this about my time running short,
good for me he could save me by the bell.
Count the blessing in marrying,
because after 30 it would be worrying
You shake your head at the woman who came before me
what good is a woman in her heels but in her ’30s,
solo and sorry, what a shame, she’d have made
a beautiful wife — a great woman!
And I am nodding along, wide-eyed, awestruck,
thinking out loud, good for her!
This is a poem I wrote for my upcoming book “Things That Grow On Us”. I had poured all my accumulated frustration for the women I knew and for myself into these words. Writing it felt like the satisfying relief of a cleansing toilet break. I had to get it out and then get myself away from it.
And just to clarify, I hold great reverence for the womanly virtues I’ve learned from my mother. I anticipate cultivating my own womanly virtues, but not to mold a man-child into a man. No woman should convince another woman that marriage is to craft a husband from whatever we are handed.
