Many tactics women try when taunted by their rivals. I’ll not bore with curses, bribery, gunshots, poison, which others might employ, but only mention that, humbled by competitors, I asked him how to win. He said, with little hesitation, unmoved by penitent stance, as a king to a concubine, “Nothing I can think of.” I, like a bronze mule, pedestaled alone in the public square, was gradually, deliberately joined by competing statues— glamour-warriors, beautiful and brave, lifted there and vying for favors from the king. Among them no washer-woman, Rosie-the-riveter, Autocad programmer, none old and skilled in sex. They can stay, if they desire, honored there in bronze, but I have a row to plow and a poem to plan about a lover and a worker and a naïve faith.