Poem: Not Our Kind, My Dear

while women are heavy readers, we know they are heavy readers of the kind of fiction that is not likely to be reviewed in the pages of the TLS…The TLS is only interested in getting the best reviews of the most important books. -Peter Stothard, editor of the Times Literary Supplement

     when polished nails touch Ulysses
Marion Bloom appears on the cover
corseted and heaving
                                   over the leather's top

between that and her windblown hair,
No it's not literary No it's not No important enough

 for these pages, my dear

                            be certain to scrape
off all that cherry bomb red
before your fingers hit the keys

if you want your book to be
important enough for us Yes
a quarter are written by the fair sex Yes

                     twenty-five percent is fair

as long as you continue to taste
salt in the wind in your heroine's hair

when our taste is for coffee grounds & tea leaves
the rest is fetish, is popular, is waste

wipe that lipstick off your face
what do you mean that's just your smile?
I know what shallow tastes like