you're a real piece of work
all rothko
and no manet

boring lines
keeping the colors
from conversing

Hips don't help
when I'm hightailing home
hurrying...

Times like these, I'd rather be asexual.

I see shadows slink-scurrying
slithering slyly
sneering...

I hate your ability to intimidate.

I want to turn toward and
take on your trash
toughly...

But there's five of you and one of me. And my hands are small.

No matter the mothering moralists
who match me to men
meaningfully...

I am a woman, and I am still afraid.

Self-defense can only go so far...
and my hips don't help.

All right, I was Welsh. Does it matter?
I spoke a tongue that was passed on
To me in the place I happened to be,
A place huddled between grey walls
Of cloud for at least half the year.
My word for heaven was not yours.
The word for hell had a sharp edge
Put on it by the hand of the wind
Honing, honing with a shrill sound
Day and night. Nothing that Glyn Dwr
Knew was armour against the rain's
Missiles. What was descent from him?

Even God had a Welsh name:
He spoke to him in the old language;
He was to have a peculiar care
For the Welsh people. History showed us
He was too big to be nailed to the wall
Of a stone chapel, yet still we crammed him
Between the boards of a black book.

Yet men sought us despite this.
My high cheek-bones, my length of skull
Drew them as to a rare portrait
By a dead master. I saw them stare
From their long cars, as I passed knee-deep
In ewes and wethers. I saw them stand
By the thorn hedges, watching me string
The far flocks on a shrill whistle.
And always there was their eyes; strong
Pressure on me: You are Welsh, they said;
Speak to us so; keep your fields free
Of the smell of petrol, the loud roar
Of hot tractors; we must have peace
And quietness.

Is a museum
Peace? I asked. Am I the keeper
Of the heart's relics, blowing the dust
In my own eyes? I am a man;
I never wanted the drab role
Life assigned me, an actor playing
To the past's audience upon a stage
Of earth and stone; the absurd label
Of birth, of race hanging askew
About my shoulders. I was in prison
Until you came; your voice was a key
Turning in the enormous lock
Of hopelessness. Did the door open
To let me out or yourselves in?

Leaning against the wall, tapping my belt, I’m waiting
For my woman
To come out of the shop with a bag full of candy and beer
Like a black swan arching her neck in the red sun
Through my shades comrades with  hands glued to the handle bars
Are passing by, raving their engines
Beards are fluttering and fringes stretching like wings.
Their women are showing their finger, one hand grasping like a chain
The chest of the riders.
There she is, kicking the stones with her foot,
Like a daughter of hell, wiping her lips with the back of her hand.
I shall bite her neck, with my hand in her hair,
Like a scorpion above the tarantula.
And she knows, by the way I stand and watch.
She throws the bag in the dust and it bounces.
The oranges roll over, one by one,
And the tea box bursts open, a scorpion comes out of it,
Crawling over the stones.
I shall squash it with my foot, while biting her mouth.
I shall signal her: get on!
And on one wheel only I shall steer the devil away
Leaving behind
The lights of the petrol station.