From “What the Men Talk about When the Women Leave the Room”

by Dionisio D. Martinez

Stieglitz

The room itself. The women. The absence of women
in the room. What the absence of women does
to a room. The sound of all those women getting

up and leaving; all of them at once, like wild
birds or hunger. How the world can be conquered
if only … Just don’t tell the women.

What the absence of women will do to men
eventually. Fears. Men talk about fears, bad
dreams, women leaving, the room swelling with

the absence of women. Bad dreams have a way
of walking in the room when the women leave.
Each dream is an afterimage of a woman leaving.