What Kind of Woman

by Kate Baer

(Did you know when you bait a deer it’s called a violation, but when you poison a girl it’s called a date.)

You are not an evergreen, unchanged by the pitiless snow. You are not a photo, a brand, a character written for sex or house or show. You do not have to choose one or the other: a dream or a dreamer, the bird or the birder. You may be a woman of commotion and quiet. Magic and brain. You can be a mother and a poet. A wife and a lover. You can dance on the graves you dug on Tuesday, pulling out the bones of yourself you began to miss. You can be the sun and the moon. The dance a victory song.

This is not a dress rehearsal before a better kind of life. Pick up your heavy burdens and leave them at the gate. I will hold the door for you.

When life throws you a bag of sorrow, hold out your hands. Little by little, mountains are climbed.

Nothing Tastes as Good as Skinny Feels Unless you count your grandmother’s cake, hand mixed while she waits for the sound of your breath at the door. Or if you consider the taste of the sea, arms raised while you enter, salt at your lips. Or maybe you’ve forgotten the taste of a lover, your mouth on his skin. I ask— have you ever tasted the cool swill of freedom? The consuming rush of a quiet, radical love.

At any given moment there is someone getting what they always wanted. I know no quicker way to ruin a day than to dwell on this.

Like a Wife The week before my wedding, my friend’s dad said: just don’t get fat, like other wives do. And so I brined him in a deep salt bath, added thyme and celery. Devoured him whole, in one big bite, so he could see just how hungry a woman can be.

When I took you as a husband I did not know the deaths our love would suffer. I did not know the graves of loneliness. Last week when you asked if I ever thought of leaving, I said no, even though what I meant was that I love the feel of your hands in the morning. That even in our darkest hours, I still wait for the sound of your feet at the door.

Deleted Sentences Dear husband. Dear lover. Dear darling of my heart. No, I do not want to attend the barbecue scheduled cruelly over naptime. I do not want to go to the recital either. Can you tell your sister that too? In the morning I saw you dancing with our daughter and for a moment I almost cried. I hate when people say I almost cried. Why even mention it at all? What time will you be home? What time do you think you may be home? What time should we wait for you outside on the lawn while the pasta boils over and the baby cries because he misses you? Oh, before I go—what time will you be home? Sometimes I wonder what would happen if you died and I had to write a eulogy while lost in my grief. What would I say? And who would take out the trash bins on dark Sunday nights or hold our children while they cried through fever dreams? What time will you be home?

What Kind of Man What kind of man weeps at the feet of his wife in pain, holds up the pink and shrieking thing and feels the throb of time. What kind of man wraps a cloth around his waist and holds the baby to his chest, walks through the streets swaying like a drunk in morning. What kind of man feels the rage of men and only swallows at his daughter’s fists at his chest. What kind of man does not give up his time, his many pleasures, but hands them over without a sound. What kind of man bends to hold them in their suffering, in their questions, in their garbled turns of phrase. What kind of man admits his failures, turns over his heavy stones, stands at the feet of grief and wanting and does not turn away. What kind of man becomes a father. A lasting place. A steady ship inside a tireless storm.

Missed Connections I was trying on my wedding dress fifteen years later, and you came in and said why on earth did you keep that old thing? You were ducking out the door in a hurry and turned to say I love you in that color, but I had already left to drink my morning tea. All day I felt the rush of sex, the feeling of your hands between my thighs, but when I bent to kiss your neck, you said, I have some indigestion. You turned over in the black of night and took my hand against your chest, but all I wanted was the warmth of my own blanket. All I could dream of was sleep.

I dreamt myself into a mother, but when I became her, I had to dream her back into a woman back into a woman back into a woman again.