She walked downtown that Saturday
And bought herself some flowers,
Where the farmers park their pick-ups
Underneath the city towers.
She took them back to her apartment
And arranged them in a vase
She has so many things to do,
To occupy her days.
Later on that night she went for drinks
With the new man from the firm,
She caught him staring once too often
At the young girl with the perm,
Or was he just admiring his own reflection,
In the gla** across the room.
And she was tired of his perfect profile anyway,
And was gone before he knew.
Outside the bar she drew a grateful breath
And she turned to head for home.
She was glad of her own company,
By herself felt less alone,
But she's a disappointment to her parents
She's a worry to her friends
She's forty years, they're still counting
She's still single, still, more or less content.
So she does lunch in shadowed fern bars
With her power suited friends,
And they shrug their padded shoulders
And ask, "What the deal with men?"
"Some men want you for a mother."
Some men want you for a who*e."
"Some men want Ingrid Bergman
Who they can drag into a sewer."
"Old men want you for a trophy."
Young men mostly act too tough."
And I don't care how old they get
They never quite grow up."
"And men whose wives don't understand them.
Or maybe understand too well."
But what a man her age calls marriage,
Is for her, another word for hell.
So she stands at the kitchen window
Watching children as they play.
Sometime scared, she's often lonely
It's a prices she's glad to pay
To bide her time in solitude,
Her friends insist she's on the shelf
But she won't jump through hoops for any man,
They'll have to take her for herself.