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I have a thing for construction workers. See them with their Timbaland boots, their worn jeans with holes around skinned knees. The noonday sun has stripped them of their work-shirts, revealing the toned flesh of a body put to use. I pass them on their lunch break as they peel foil from ham and cheese sandwiches. Crumbs scratch against the cheeks of five o'clock shadows. They eat deliberately, as if the whole day has been for this meal and now they take their time. They savor and I want to savor them. These are men meant for tasting, not talk. Their lips I imagine taste of the salty sea.
 I want them and not what I've had before -- prom kings lamenting their former glory. They work white collar jobs, spend evenings thinking of mortgages. Their energy is reserved for football games, not sex. They are two-minute fucks who are passed out by ten.
Don't talk to me either of skinny boys in skinny jeans who would write me love sonnets. Drinking PBR as they play in basement bands. They wear their hearts on their sleeves but don't know what to do with yours when you give it, except sing songs when you leave them for men who will fuck you without apologizing. Timid and self-effacing, yet drunk with the ego of youth.
Give me a man who has lived. Who understands the grim feel of a day's work in the sun. Who is looking to satisfy a hunger unfulfilled and so knows what to do when I strip myself bare. Who will grab my thighs with the force of a reckoning desire. A man who will rip apart my creased trousers and then, faced with what's underneath, will suddenly turn delicate from unexpected humility.
I want a man I can objectify. Who loves the taste of Miller Light, of a steak cooked rare, and also of me as I spread my legs wide. This is who I want to spend my nights with, to wake up shameful with bliss and smell the musky scent of sex filling my sheets, making me feel unclean, and in the morning I will put on my collared shirt and cardigan and kitten heels and not think twice about what I've done and to who I've done it with.
If she were alive my mother would say, "lie down with dogs wake up with fleas." She thought a man's value was determined through a paycheck delivered. To her these were men not worth the time of even the simple grace of a hello, much less a night of adulteration.
I would tell her that men are deceivers anyway. Believe me, I have slept with my fair share, and they all were buttoned-up and beautiful.
So give me now callused and dirty.
At least, I'd tell her, this time would be worth the risk.
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