Originally posted 3/6/2013.

A man who has never been rejected
is watching women on Highland Street
as if they were ruins in the Yucatan.

As if in the ruins of a Mayan city
these women were exhibits to be viewed.
As if they were souvenirs.

A man who has never been rejected
is shopping for a souvenir among the women
of Highland Street

while imagining
he is a prince of a lost realm
he learned about in school

or perhaps in books from his father’s library
that displayed women as souvenirs
for the taking by princes of the realm.

He is imagining
a backdrop
of old roads and palaces.

Ruins and palaces
and temples for men
who have never been rejected.

Never rejected,
ever,
at all,

because they’ve never asked permission
when they take a woman
as a souvenir of the realm.

A man watches women on Highland Street.
Imagines himself as center
of a useful myth.

Imagines himself glistening,
a souvenir himself,
carved in obsidian.