Picking through the pockets of an old jacket
I found notes cribbed years ago
wrung through washings in different houses
of a conversation between two women in a bar
talking about men.

They loathed those men long gone now
but after two hours and drinks
softened and created the perfect man
out of all the spare parts memory could find
to build the perfect lover
and then added, one by one
the flaws that faulted them in the first place.