I praise women who are bold and in control.

Women who press forward. Women who push back.

Women who are Gloria Steinem, who are Gloria Gaynor.

Women who are pissed off, whose seismic anger

is as presidential as Rushmore and holier than St Peter’s.

Women whose socks quote Pema and Glennon.

Women who take the reins. Women who keep me around

for entertainment value. Women to whom I bring coffee.

Who indulge my boyish whimsy, to a point,

and are irritated by my slowness on the uptake.

I prize Episcopal women (or is it Episcopalian?):

in clericals, in vestry, in the pews.

Women whose feet I wash on Maundy Thursday,

male Magdalen whose heart is overflowing

with Sophianic Jesus and the Pembroke-Sidney Psalter.

I bow to women who punctuate, stare sharply,

correct my grammar, have mad skills with iambic!

Women who out-sonnet me, out-ghazal me, out-ballad me:

women of Parnassus wielding sceptres of pentameter—

I gather up the grassblades pressed by their birkenstocks.

Women majestic as herons and godly as thunder.

Women who love women. Women who love men.

Women who embrace all genders. Who can’t wait for November,

the fall of all things toxic and small. Women who drink martinis.

Women who are sober. Women who sing in Hebrew.

I celebrate women who march for justice, women

who find their voice, who take up space, who persist,

who endure unspeakable invective in comment-threads,

who are “secretly admired,” who fend off advances.

I listen to women who call me onto the carpet.