When Men Do Nothing - Voice Male Magazine

Desire
by George Bilgere
The slim, suntanned legs
of the woman in front of me in the checkout line
fill me with yearning
to provide her with health insurance
and a sporty little car with personalized plates.
The way her dark hair
falls straight to her slender waist
makes me ache
to pay for a washer/dryer combo
and yearly ski trips to Aspen, not to mention
her weekly visits to the spa
and nail salon.
And the delicate rise of her breasts
under her thin blouse
kindles my desire
to purchase a blue minivan with a car seat,
and soon another car seat, and eventually
piano lessons and braces
for two teenage girls who will hate me.
Finally, her full, pouting lips
make me long to take out a second mortgage
in order to put both kids through college
at first- or second-tier institutions,
then cover their wedding expenses
and help out financially with the grandchildren
as generously as possible before I die
and leave them everything.
But now the cashier rings her up
and she walks out of my life forever,
leaving me alone
with my beer and toilet paper and frozen pizzas.
George Bilgere has published several books of poetry and hosts Wordplay, a spoken-word radio program that’s
been called the Car Talk of poetry.
A Feminist Responds to Desire
Reading this poem set the feminist neurons in my brain firing. Something about it didn’t sit right with me. Perhaps
it was the theme of man-as-provider with its explicit descriptions of what he’d “pay” for, what he’d “purchase” for
her. The narrator expresses dedication to the family he dreams of, surprising me by tempering his objectification
of the woman’s body with a longing for the domestic. Like many lonely, single men, he is not able to access whatever
emotional ties he might feel for his children or wife and cannot envision himself explicitly saying how much he cares.
Instead, he hides behind his material and financial contributions to their welfare.
Though the sight of the woman’s legs arouses a refreshing fantasy of family, not sex, it’s the poem’s representation
of the woman that’s troubling. Her “slender” and “delicate” body, along with her “straight” hair, call up an image of
the tired-out beauty ideal of a thin white woman dominant for far too long. (Not to say thin white women cannot be beautiful—they
are—but repetitively equating a single body type with what constitutes beauty and perfection deprives readers
of a rainbow of other possibilities.)
Despite the narrator’s descriptions of old-school domestic femininity and gender roles, I found myself empathizing
with him, glimpsing a snapshot of his interior life. He appears to be a man whose own conceptions of his masculinity
are in transition. Even as he objectifies her, his desire for the domestic seems to suggest a steering away from traditional
masculinity. One day, perhaps, he’ll be able to leave his lonely life of beer and frozen pizza and co-create with a partner a
life that’s rich, whole and equal.
Voice Male intern Maia Mares will be entering her junior year at Amherst College in the fall.
—Maia Mares
10 Voice Male PREVIEW
To receive the full issue and to subscribe please go to: http://voicemalemagazine.org/donate