April 2: My Daughter, Billy Collins, "Man in Space"

I have loved the poem below since before my daughter was born.  Now that she is 18 and about to enter the "real" world, I hope she is like the women in science fiction movies, armored against stupid boys and men who are simply looking for mommy replacements.

This afternoon, I got an e-mail from a friend of mine who knows my daughter.  At the end of the e-mail, he wrote, "Have I mentioned that your daughter is an amazing kid?  She really is."

At least Saint Marty did one thing right in his life.

Man in Space

by:  Billy Collins

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.