Men croon
playful puns about you.
Men legislate, fix
your tan tunic
and wide bulb
with geography.
Men say your sweetness comes
from the soil,
comes from a depression-era accident
from a patch of sandy land.
Brimstone trapped
underneath
. . . in Georgia clay.

Michele Reese is a Professor of English at the University of South Carolina Sumter and the author of the poetry collection Following Phia. Her poems have also been published in several journals including Crack the Spine Literary Magazine, The Oklahoma Review, Poetry Midwest, and The Paris Review.