Wife
The word still foreign on my tongue, A swift, crisp swoosh, mimicking The pulse of life. Last eve, my unbound girls Chided, "It's not wife-sanctioned," they said, Of a comrade's wanderlust. Their gazes Vaulted skyward, then danced away, fleeting As youth. Wife—does it echo a vocation? "I desire a wife," declared the famed advocate, One to launder, press, patch, renew— A term, effortlessly morphed to 'servant.' A wife to tend, mend, cherish, heed. Housewife, fishwife, scorned or adored, But what