Poetry Friday - Proving you wrong

It's basically singleness month around here, so here is a poem that fits from Sophie Hannah. It makes me laugh ... yet also pause. Sometimes I think I am living in the wrong place, hanging out in the inner-west where the men are mostly milk-frothing types who play with technological things, which is not my kind of guy (I like the rugged, silent, outdoorsy type, who's also, somehow, a very good communicator, likes books and writes poetry ;)!), but you just never know ...

Soft-handed man

She couldn't love a man who had soft hands

and didn't do constructive things with wood,

but if she met one that she loved, she could.

She's right to say we all make strange demands

and right to think that no one understands.

Hard hands are not indicative of good

character, don't infallibly belong

to rugged, silent types who rarely shave,

who are, in equal measures, kind and brave.

Just over the horizon there's a strong

soft-handed man waiting to prove her wrong,

and when a person proves you wrong, they save

acres of mind you were about to close

and turn it into habitable land.

Each time you hold an unexpected hand

and stare at features that you never chose,

you're dealing with authority that knows

better than you how well things could be planned.

Sophie Hannah