Ode to the Women on Long Island Olivia Gatwood

I want to write a poem for the women on Long Island who smoke cigarettes in their SUVs with the windows rolled up before walking into yoga
Who hack and curse in downward dog
and Deborah
from the next block over who has strong opinions about Christmas lights after New Year’s
says that her body isn’t what it used to be
but neither is the economy or the bagels at Rickman’s Deli so who really cares
And during shavasana
she brings up the rabbi’s daughter who got an abortion last spring
and Candy in the corner calls Deborah hateful
and the class takes a sharp inhale in through the nose then out through the mouth
and after class
after Candy rushes home to check the lasagna
Deborah lights up a smoke and calls her friend Tammy

“So then the girl calls me ‘hateful’
hateful can you believe it
what a word
some kind of dictionary bitch over here
so ya know what I says? I says ‘you don’t know the first thing about hateful
ya wanna know what’s hateful?
menopause.’ ”

And it doesn’t really matter if Deborah actually said that to Candy
which she didn’t
because Tammy is so caught up that Candy called Deborah “hateful”
which she did
that next week when Tammy runs into Candy while shopping in Rockville Center
and Candy asks Tammy how she’s doing
Tammy will adjust the purse strap on her shoulder and say, “We all have a little coal in our stocking, Candy.”
And Candy will shuffle away
certain that Tammy knows something about her marriage that she shouldn’t and she doesn’t
she just loves Deborah
who has a lot of opinions
and had Candy given her the chance to finish her sentence
Deborah would have talked about the reproductive rights march she went to in the 60s
and the counterproductive sex-shaming methods of organized religion