Ode to the Other Woman’s Ass

You have occupied my husband’s imagination when he otherwise might have been bored. You gave him pretty shapes to behold at the mall, in the supermarket, when he peered from behind his Newsweek at the airport. Oh thong wearer, the strings rising from your crack like a bird’s wings in flight. Oh pencil skirt, snug jeans, short shorts, bikini bottoms, capris, and the circles they contain. Oh billboard buttocks, magazine tushes, movie-star derrieres. Oh porno fannies, soft-core rumps, the heinies of whores, the gluteus maximus of the girl next door.

Oh Asses of Other Women, our relationship, I know, has not been one of ease. For years I feared you, feared that my husband would follow your wiggle and leave me for your high-branch peach, your airbrushed apple. I also feared the eyes of your men, their animal glances, their whistles when you were not with them. I have put up with their flirting, as I hope you put up with my husband’s. If you are like me, I know you will not always like it, but on a bad day it can almost be welcome, remind you of what can sometimes be lost in a long marriage.

Oh Asses of Other Women, you are beautiful, with or without a stranger’s validation. You know that, and your men know it, too. Yet, if you are feeling kind, please ask the face attached to you to humor my husband with a smile should he look up to find eyes and when your husband looks my way I will try to do the same.