[John Whitworth]

5.

Your Other Women

Your secretaries, eager to assist you;
your colleagues, protegées, even your dean;
the shopgirls who, you joke, cannot resist you;
my own best friends; the maid who comes to clean;
the women whom you’ve charmed in conversation;
the students who adore you from afar--
how can I resent their admiration,
knowing, better than they, how good you are?

So pick your favorite starlets for your spree
and rent each film they’ve been in from the start--
I won’t complain. How can I say you’re wrong
to ogle blondes you swear all look like me?
For when our jobs require long weeks apart,
we both know what it takes to get along.