I cried at the breakfast table this morning
my father carefully explained,
"wives must be submissive to their husbands"
"housecleaning is the domain of the woman"
"God created woman because man asked for a partner"

This past semester I wrote two papers

One, a fire and brimstone sermon
          I quoted Anais Nin
          sending the creators of sexist commercials to eternal suffering
          "**** them!" I said. "May they burn in hell."
          For the women they portrayed were doormats
          Misconceptions
          Monsters

The other, the role of women in the 1920s,
           No longer confined to the kitchen
           they dropped ballots with their new freedom
           they wore short dresses and short tresses
           fingers wrapped around cigs
           they quoted Wilde instead of Alcott
           they danced until their feet hurt
       
I read of Anais Nin's "new woman,"
her partnership, not submission to man,

I craved a room of my own, neigh demanded it
For sheep stayed in the kitchen,
The Woolf had a study.

I read poetry
Sexton,
Plath,
I wept for their starved, depressed selves
caged, suffocating inside the clasped hands of a man.
Loved like rib-cage jails.

Adrienne Rich made me angry,
her daughter-in-law
forever trying to fit into a box
she was always too big for, spilling
at the edges, her shaved
legs like "white mammoth tusks"

I was finally
happy with my womanhood.

******, ******, *****, *******
they are mine.
******* free to move unrestrained,
jiggling under my shirt.
Wetness between my thighs.
Menstrual blood,
they are mine.

mine.

I am not ashamed of what I am
because there is no shame.

I am woman,
I am girl,
I am lady.
I am a creature
with a voice
a mind.

a creature who endured much abuse,
continue to endure.

I am woman

and I don't have to be wife or mother
unless I want to be.
I was not created for man;
I was created for the same reason he was,
to serve the same great purpose on this tiny blue dot.

I am not rib.

I am ******, ******, *****, *******
******* free, unrestrained,
Wetness between my thighs.
Menstrual blood,

I am a per.
I am a wo.
I am a hu.

Man and son need to back down,
collaborate not dominate,
speak not command,

for when less are forced into silence,
the maddening scream
hidden inside skin and bones and muscle-meat
becomes song.

this world of car horns and tire screeches
crying and wailing from raw throats
angry protests of indignation

could use a little music.

Tap tap go the slim, brown shoes
And a snazzy hat bobbing on his head
Tap tap, some like to lick a girl’s toes,
And some collect stamps of people long dead

‘T is what it is, but I reckon that
There are too many poems about love
And too few about fish

tonight is speaking in some strange tongue that I can't
quite make out while you're standing and staring at
my neck with your 'a heck of a lot' of hair and my
scalp, practically visible beneath the
moon at the moment, I can feel something slide
inside myself and though I have yet to 'click'
the sound will come from you, I feel,
with you, I feel
with you.

If an easy rain
would make the rocks slippery,
he would hold my hand.

You're the only one I've ever known to stare
at the face of the clock on your wrist,
carefully following the

tick.

tick.

tickin.

just so you could brag about
what every two-eyed person missed--
catching the minute hand move, in its slight little twitch
or maybe it was the hour
I fail to remember which.

Saw it with your own two eyes you said to me while
smiling
and i shook my head in disbelief,
amused at that tricky timing.

I looked at you and thought some thoughts
of how your you-ness has always been
a what you get is not what you see,

your patience forever a complexity,

and your determination, the perplexor
needs its own personal illustrator
.
You've always known where you were headed
but you also made sure that you'd take
the longest, most
                                                
                                             loopingly,

                           w
                                 i
                  n
       d
                           i
            ng-est,
                                                    weirdest path
to get and eat life's cake.

I knew I couldn't follow you
but well I gave it a try
and when you finally put your wings on
I was just happy to see you fly