Vacant

It was like a book
with a beginning and end, but no middle.
The women of the town were too young
or already wives.
Availability :
fundamental prerequisite for a relationship.
They weren’t ….
going from high school to the marriage
or education in distant centres often returning,
married or divorced,
nest- building or past abandoning.
Or dented by the inattention of neither.
And older – too old.

I had come young,
hoping for adventure
settling for time out.
Career had found me.
It has come as a surprise,
an opening bid hoped for, but not expected.

Conspicuously single and lonely.
Gay? Many thought so,
before time was liberal ….
when gay was still vice and precarious.

Wanted :
for young professional male
an Intelligent intelligent, attractive, loving, vivacious, outdoorsy woman.

Wanted,
an intelligent, attractive, loving, vivacious woman.
Wanted,
an intelligent, attractive, loving, woman.
Wanted,
an intelligent, attractive, woman.
Wanted, 
an intelligent woman.
Wanted
a woman.

I loved going to work
it made me feel useful and appropriate,
and not lonely.