Tuesday Poem: Men are like pebbles (After Wendy Cope)

Men are like pebbles

you know the type
lying in wait
on the sand

winking at passing ladies
bodies glistening with salt.

You know you shouldn’t
(what would you do
with another pebble?
the last one turned out
to be useless)

but another beckons
and another
and before you know
you’re picking one up.

And this is where it gets
really difficult –

how do you choose
the perfect pebble?

Some come round
some cornered
one looks like a small mountain
another like swirled chocolate
this one’s shaped like a shark’s tooth
and this looks like moonlight in your palm

You hold them, feel the weight of them.
You can’t decide
yet to take all of them home
would be greedy at best.

You start to see their imperfections
blemishes and strange angles
realise they are not as rounded
as they claim
suspect their charms
are only surface.

You want to fling them away.
You want to fling away the whole damn beach.
But just as you’re about
to push away the last one
you take another look.

This one is speckled
nice curves but nothing special
you can’t even remember why you picked him up
but there’s a nice heft to him,
an answering weight. He’s solid
practical
imperfect yes,
but then
so are you. His body feels warm and sleepy in your hand. Slowly

you slip him into your pocket
and keep walking.