We Were Women

for Betsy Gannon

I knew George, but not that one.
But I knew all the ones
when you talked to them they thought,
she likes me.

I was a woman and
he thought he needed me.
Imagined what I could do for him.
Date him. Rescue him. Get horizontal.

Like a mother, make the world safe.
Georges just like him told me
it's so hard, there are
30 million desirable women

out there and I haven't had
a girlfriend since 1984.
He was sad and his sorrow plucked my strings.
I dined with a man like him.

Danced with a man like him.
But his need crawled me.
It's not going to work, I said.
Later, he wanted to know more.

Would it work, if I was Catholic?
If I was tall? If I was young?
If I was old? Would what work,
I asked. Us, he said.

Please, there is no us, I told that George.
And then the other one came by our gym.
We were a group of women
he didn't know in our exercise clothes.

He shot us all. We fell like lovers,
like mothers, like dancers.
I did not know how much he hated
until he killed me.