Julia Copus: Hymn to All the Men I’ll Never Love

My heart, sing praises to the men
I’ll never love; from whom a night
away’s just that — a night — and not
a lifetime in the desert without food
and water. It’s because of them
that breakfasts can be eaten, Lord, appointments
kept, and letters left to lie
where they have fallen; men with whom
a perfect evening may be nothing more
than beer and cards outside beneath the lean-to

where straight-talk and easy gestures leave
dark nests of sparrows and the scent
of bonfires in their wake; the sort of men
whose smiles I can endure without
surrendering my all to them;
in whose unswerving disregard,
let heaven rejoice, let the earth be glad.