In the drawer were folded fine
batiste slips embroidered with scrolls
and posies, edged with handmade
lace too good for her to wear.

Daily she put on shmattehs
fit only to wash the car
or the windows, rags
that had never been pretty

even when new: somewhere
such dresses are sold only
to women without money to waste
on themselves, on pleasure,

to women who hate their bodies,
to women whose lives close on them.
Such dresses come bleached by tears,
packed in salt like herring.

Yet she put the good things away
for the good day that must surely
come, when promises would open
like tulips their satin cups

for her to drink the sweet
sacramental wine of fulfillment.

The story shone in her as through
tinted glass, how the mother

gave up and did without
and was in the end crowned
with what? scallions? crowned
queen of the dead place

in the heart where old dreams
whistle on bone flutes
where run-over pets are forgotten,
where lost stockings go?

In the coffin she was beautiful
not because of the undertaker's
garish cosmetics but because
that face at eighty was still

her face at eighteen peering
over the drab long dress
of poverty, clutching a book.
Where did you read your dreams, Mother?

Because her expression softened
from the pucker of disappointment,
the grimace of swallowed rage,
she looked a white-haired girl.

The anger turned inward, the anger
turned inward, where
could it go except to make pain?
It flowed into me with her milk.

Her anger annealed me.
I was dipped into the cauldron
of boiling rage and rose
a warrior and a witch

but still vulnerable
there where she held me.
She could always wound me
for she knew the secret places.

She could always touch me
for she knew the pressure
points of pleasure and pain.
Our minds were woven together.

I gave her presents and she hid
them away, wrapped in plastic.
Too good, she said, too good.
I'm saving them. So after her death

I sort them, the ugly things
that were sufficient for every
day and the pretty things for which
no day of hers was ever good enough.

Mind wonders all the time
About the curves defined by glowing silk
Soft as clouds and sweet as summer rain
My fantasies loom in my clouded mind
Distracted by lust and desire

whispered memories
gated truths
misery behind a laugh
playful child
run with the butterflies
forget all these ties
they aren't apart of you
so run create fun
these whispered memories
are not apart of you
a limb
your subconscious mind
tore apart from you.
so run little child
let your wings sore
and fly with the doves
sing little child
sing with the birds
play little child
let the grass grow so tall it tickles your nose
be graceful little one
because you can now
this limb is detached
laugh little one
because there is no more pain to hide behind
you are strong little one
mighty even
you're brave
little one
you are all
just laugh little one
let the whispers go with the wind
take stand for yourself
let this lesson be the whispered memory
to remind you to be brave, fearless, childlike
to take this pain and consciously detach it from yourself
to carry on
be the little one
the fearless one

Turn. Tug. Pull at my dress where the buttons came undone in the scuffle. Point to the clavacle, a little blue. Trace it with your cruel fingers. Talk like it was your right to take my body into your mind and do what all red blooded men want to do. What they're made to do. I wanted it. Draw the strands of my hair into your nostrils, and close your eyes in what will look like a prayer for chastity, to the very blind. You enjoyed the way it felt to undress me with your words in front of everyone, and nobody stopped you.
I bet it felt powerful.
I bet it felt like freedom, to flick your tongue to taste the air right out there in the open.

You are not free.
And, forgive me,
But I do not believe that men were made to pull off the buttons. I do not believe they were born to take our bodies into their minds, or into the back seat of their cars, or behind dumpsters, or into empty laundry rooms where no one can hear the screaming.

Forgive me,
but it's *******.

Men do not have to be cowards, or dogs, or drunkards, or the way it feels to have the pillows ripped out from under your head for saying "please, not tonight."

You are not free.

(But you could be.)

My sisters and I were placed on the front step in front of the house, where red blooded bodies were begging for red blood, and ***, and somebody's virtue to ravage.
They said, "take our daughters."

It was our innocence which made us the perfect consolation prize. A tidy meal to tide them over.

The truth is coming like a sword.
The truth is coming like water.
The truth is coming like a sword.
The truth is coming like fire.

Beautiful women are everywhere.
Beautiful souls are found rather rare.
I may be none.i may be both.
I may be a third type that I chose.
All that you need,to make your judgement fair
Is to know I'm a women
who in need will be there.

Did you know that if you leave your car in your driveway,
With the keys in the ignition,
And someone sits down in the front seat like they own it, and drives away,
You are the one who is liable for theft?
They can drive that sucker to the coast.
They can burn the upholstery with their cigarettes. They can bring their friends into the back seat, and fill the compartments with their refuse, and ****, and they can leave it ruined in front of your house, or crushed into the median on the highway, or left in disconnected pieces under an overpass.
It will be called, “unauthorized use of a vehicle.”
It will be called a “misdemeanor.”
But you left the car running.
Weren't you kind of asking for it to happen?

They said,
This,
(Gesturing to the skirt which fell to two inches
above my kneecap),
Is like that.

If I walk outside of my house in jeans and a t-shirt, or a long dress with thin straps,
Or with my chin tilted out,
Or with long eyelashes,
Or with full lips,
Or with my hips swaying when I walk,

It's like I left the car running.

It's like I invited them to force their bodies into the front seat.
In their minds, or with their hands, or with their lips to anyone who would listen to them.

Little girls in leotards become like unlocked car doors;
Where men can burn their cigarettes into their skin,
Or stick their fingers in
In plain view of their parents,
And told to let it happen,
Quietly.
It isn't theft,
It's “a medical examination.”

What did they expect?
It isn't a theft.
She was just as guilty of negligence.
It isn't really a felony.
It's not THAT BAD. (Stop being so dramatic.)
It's the unauthorized use of your body, for a time, or one night,
or every time you close your eyes for the rest of your life,

Sure-

But you left the car running.

They'll say, "Women are beautiful, like books." They'll thumb through, gently turning the pages, smelling the worn pulp, being careful not to hurt the old and exhausted spine. They'll say, "Beautiful.. aren't they just beautiful?" before placing the unread books back on their neatly lined shelves. Kant and Lawrence and Morrison will line either side of the fireplace for the next twelve years, and the homeowner will recline and sigh and think about how elegant their space looks lined with hardbacks and plays. And all across America libraries will lose funding because books are beautiful. Because they make a home feel full. Because the pages are old and perfect, unread, untouched, unloved, unopened vaults of ideas that can only be preserved through concept, potentially brilliant and bound in untouched beauty. Women are. Beautiful books.

To the women who dismantled the world
with their bare hands
just to build it up again.

May we know them.
To the Eleanor Roosevelts,
to the Marilyn Monroes.
To our mothers
and our grandmothers

May we be them.
Women who speak with fire
and revel in the flame,
who shatter the glass ceiling
and dance around the broken shards.

May we raise them.
To our sisters
and our daughters.
To the women who came before me
and all of the girls who will come after.

Here’s to strong women.