Thursday 14 June 2018


Bachelor Girl

by Sarah Henry


Her church holds
a night of recreation
for singles who
are active members.
She seeks
a determined man.

A preacher
leads the group.
He flattens his hands
on a long wooden
table to be honest.
“Now,
I don’t want
any of you here
going out
with each other
without my consent,”
he says,
from an omniscient
point of view.
And then--
“Let’s order pizza.”

Members rush
into an annex
and play frantic
volleyball matches.
Loners pace
back and forth
on the sidelines.
Out in the parking
lot, dark, desperate
snow falls
over lost cars.

The girl’s bed
will be half empty
or half full.
Time will pass
slowly or quickly
until she goes again.


* * * * *

Sarah Henry studied with two U.S. poet laureates at the University of Virginia. Today she lives near Pittsburgh, where her poems have appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Pittsburgh Poetry Review. More of Sarah work has been included in Writing in a Woman's Voice, MUSED:The Bella Online Literary Review, and the International Woman's Day issue of The Camel Saloon. She is retired from a newspaper.

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