I Who Have Never Known Men

by Jacqueline Harpman

I felt a surge of grief, I, who had never known men, as

I stood in front of this man who had wanted to overcome fear and despair to enter eternity upright and furious.

Sometimes the women pitied me, saying that at least they’d known real life, and I was very jealous of them, but they died, as I am about to die, and what does having lived mean once you are no longer alive?