STRAIGHT MEN OF CAPE TOWN Poem by Finuala Dowling

Though neither sheik nor potentate
each straight man in Cape Town
has twenty wives: his own
his widowed mom
his wife's unmarried friends,
their single sisters
the spinsters and the divorcees

whose potential partners are
diving for doubloons off Cuba
trading bonds in Singapore
gathering meteorological data on Gough Island
attaching nodes to interfaces in Dublin
raising sheep in the Karoo
mining platinum in Rustenburg
running a kibbutz in Israel
or still here in Cape Town but
collecting porcelain and blow-drying hair.

So the straight man of Cape Town sighs
as he opens doors and walks behind
and pulls out chairs, listening with half an ear
to his wife's unmarried friends,
the spinsters and the divorcees

whose husbands left them
for a stripper or a teen
for a change of woman
or for a change, a man,

whose ghost lovers left
for Cuba or for Dublin,
for Rustenburg or Singapore,
to farm in Carnarvon
or on a kibbutz
and so on,
ensovoorts.