Managing Men
Tesa Blue Flores
Women are tiny things.
Horses trotting around the world, circular, circular.
Tiny little things like plastic military toys, army green
in power, being flung against the wall.
(I’ve heard) Men are gentlemen.
There are bottled up perfumes that no real men ever smell like,
sable and teak, leather and smoke.
Movies and books with slow simmered lust and kindness, thoughtfulness, intentionality.
Real men are hard and demanding,
cruelty on a monday morning, heaviness where you just wanted a breath.
I would be light as air but my legs are in molasses and it turns them on.
So many breaths interrupted by them
when I was doing something, when I was trying to be gentle. I don’t always want to be a knife,
unsheaved over and over all day, the sound of metal slicing air.
So many thoughts I could have transferred to another account instead it was dedicated to dealing
with of you all. Olivia Benson speaking to the armed kidnapper but every day and I don’t know
what you are capable of, don’t have the fbi profile.
Air comes out of my mouth making words and my breath smells like desperation.
Agility courses, land mines
I am not a ballerina, don’t dance the circles nicely. I’m a bald eagle, looking, listening.
One earphone out, one hand on weapon
eyes, flick, flick
legs, swish, swish.
Us girls breathing,
antagonizes men.
Tesa Blue Flores is a nanny, wedding planner, house cleaner and poet. She lives in Brooklyn, NY where she’s working on her first book.