Eurydice

You are perfect as you are 

my dear friend

and who should know

better than I 

after thirty years

in your company. 

All these beautiful women

trying to be more delicate 

and decorative

when the truth of it is

that isn’t what pulled through

our mothers

our grandmothers

and great-grandmothers

when the tide turned. 

We’ll need strength

to battle a world

that wants to subdue us 

that wants to put us

in a glass coffin

waiting for a Prince to kiss us

without consent. 

I don’t think we’ve

ever been ready for that 

kind of future

let’s be sirens instead

or succubi 

let’s be the kind of women

that men can’t help looking 

back at

over their shoulder

when leaving the underworld.