Man in Space
All you have to do is listen to
the way a man sometimes talks to his
wife at a table of people and notice
how intent he is on making his point
even though her lower lip
is beginning to quiver,
and you will know why the women
in science fiction movies who inhabit
a planet of their own are not pictured
making a salad or reading a magazine
when the men from earth arrive
in their rocket,
why they are always standing
in a semicircle
with their arms folded,
their bare legs set apart,
their breasts protected
by hard metal disks.
Billy Collins
Posted over on