We are wo
morpheme for
man.

But I see your pain, sisters.

I acknowledge it.

I validate it;

I gift us the vowel
e

w o e

for we will not stay broken
while men claim the throne to

whole

every time
i speak my own
name i taste
the blood of
my mother's bit
lip (&) held tongue-- a self shed
to take rein

o' my father's flatiron
sur/name:
the blood, reigned (&)
i remain—
sanguine & ruddy
after all
(these broods).

If I pick my scales off and prink, move
mountains to paint my flesh, turn red
lilies the wrong hue, I can
live in a world where I choose the
color

until blue and burgundy spots
form on each windowsill.

Look inside to join them watching
me dance
my large dance.

Look at him through fluttering eyelashes
Be docile
Be his doll
Sweet, supple, submissive

Tell him of his brilliance
Tell him he's the only one
Let your thoughts become his words
His words, his brilliance
His
Not yours

What is his will be valued
You will be valued
For being his
Not yours

Speak up but not over him
Your thoughts are his words
His words his brilliance
Stay sweet, supple, submissive
His, not yours

You speak too much
Your lips are not meant to be used
Unless for him
and his pleasure
His, not yours

You think too much of your pain
Destitution of recognition
Unless it be in empathy of his pain
Yours will have no value
His, not yours

You spoke over him, not up
Your words are not valued
unless they become his brilliance
His, not yours

You are becoming autonomous
Remember who you are
Fluttering eyelashes
Docile
Supple body
Submission
Never your own
Only his
His, not yours

There’s no room for me in my own life.  My body cramps and contorts to fit into the narrow little space you’ve allotted for me to occupy, and even then, you manage to take it all up. You’ve barged in on every aspect of my life. It doesn’t even feel like mine anymore. Yes, my life is yours, to do with what you will. You are a god. Omniscient. Omnipotent. Omnipresent. You are everywhere. I am not a fully formed person at all; I am a child clinging to her father’s hand, lest the evils of the world ****** her up and tempt her to sin.

She wrote poems about sunflowers
and about the colors of each of the different flavors in her afternoon tea.

She wrote about the foot-worn path in the concrete floor of the history museum;
About a stranger’s dog who licked her hand at the park.

And to her future child,
And to the boundlessness of love she knew but could not fathom that existed in a forever-expanding space inside her,
And about that brave and resilient seed shared by all of science and art,
the interconnectedness of all things.

In radical joyful tones,
she documented the goodnesses of her Ordinary on scraps of paper and deposited them into a small chest,
her Memory Bank.

The people pointed at the lonely beergazer
The outraged wunderkind
The housebound widower
Each lost in the past or in the future.
Ah, misery.
The father of poetry.
They would shake their heads,
A shame, they would say.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town or maybe the world,
the mother of poetry, undeterred,
sat in her garden
singing to the souls of the vegetables.

And the patriarch
jumped
over the womb