Even More Domineering Poem by Louise Tredoux

I love Rudi’s protectiveness, Juliette says
I’m a disgrace to all feminists, I love his
jealousy while Juliette points out that she
is the great beauty, not I, she has the hair,
seriously beautiful hair, long legs and big
blue eyes; while I have soft hair, light-sen-
sitive eyes and short legs and a non-sexy
smile, Juliette has been crowned first
princess in a beauty pageant

She mockingly threatens to steal Rudi from
me, he’s much too handsome and I’m much
too clinging, she says, but I disagree, I asked
him could he have chosen Juliette if he had
met her first, he burst out laughing and said
not on your life, I don’t care for eyes, legs and
hair, but about what’s inside, I asked him if
he loved what’s inside me more
than the outside –

He replied, I love what’s inside AND I adore
the package in which you arrived, he kissed
my non-glamorous hair and my light-sensitive
eyes and said he liked the fire that lived inside,
he kissed my non-sexy smile and said the love
in the line of my lips drove him wild, I asked him
about my being too dependent and forcing him
to be domineering, using Juliette’s arguments;
he decided then and there

To become even more domineering instead
and marched me off to bed…