Poem: Like Any Woman

It was not what she said

Instead

It was the way she held

The stem of her glass

Between freshly painted

Fingernails

Details

Red wine and red.


She breathed in and out

Like any woman would

Except

The silk in her dress

Gathered and fell

With inhale and

Exhale—

I waited for the next.


Her laugh was too loud

No clever disguise of

Civilized

Formalized veiling her mouth

Instead

Candlelit stares

In the face of she

Whose savage joy mesmerized me.


There was a soulful tune

Permeating the room

Penetrating

Armor I knew

Well beyond its usefulness

But

I had grown accustomed to

Until I felt the thrust of she.


Never before had her eyes

Encountered mine

“Hello,” I said—

Enunciation tranquilized

Words fell all the way back

And slid

To the sharpest point

Of her black high heel.


It was not that I fell mute

Instead

I dared not dilute

Fortuity in the air

With words wrapped

In coherence or

Forced insistence

Of my own understanding.


I held my hand open

For her to take

Perceiving

Gently cleaving

To the feeling

If she lay her hand in mine

Her touch would both stop and

Awaken time.

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025

Author: Jill Szoo Wilson

I am captivated by beauty, questions that dig to the center of things, and people who tell the truth about the human experience. View all posts by Jill Szoo Wilson