A War Against Women in a Rape Culture (with poem)

At the debate tonight, I saw Donald Trump make light of his leaked video admissions of being guilty of serial sexual assault. I saw him get away with it and have read the comments of many men who say, "It's no big deal." To them, apparently, it's not, but to millions of women, it's a terrible, terrifying reality that we have had to deal with since we were girls.

We know that, any time we are around men, we are at risk of being assaulted. Nowhere is safe. We've been assaulted in churches and schools, on buses and trains, at home and our friends' and relatives' homes--everywhere. We also know that this society doesn't take these assaults--or us--seriously.

I have a poem that I've written about this. I don't read it a lot when I give public poetry readings because it's long and because it's such a grim subject, but whenever I do read it, I always have many women from the audience come up to me afterward, sometimes in tears, to tell me that it struck home, that something similar had happened to them.

Here is that poem.

P.O.W.

I

Before I fall into the past,

I drive to the library,

thumb open a book

about the death of a child

in Greenwich Village and

plunge

back

in

time

to trash-filled rooms smelling

of milk, urine, beer and blood,

doors locked and curtains drawn

against the world,

dirty baby brother caged in a playpen,

mother nursing broken nose,

split lip, overflowing ashtray,

and father filling the room to the ceiling,

shouting drunken songs and threats

before whom I tremble and dance,

wobbly diversion, to keep away

the sound of fist against face,

bone against wall.

The book never shows

the other little brothers and sister hiding

around corners and under covers,

but I know they are there

and dance faster,

sing the songs that give him pleasure,

pay the price for their sleep

later, his hand pinching flat nipples,

thrusting between schoolgirl thighs,

as dangerous to please as to anger

the giant who holds the keys

to our family prison. Mother

has no way to keep him from me,

but I can do it for her and them.

Locked by these pages

behind enemy lines again

where I plan futile sabotage

and murder every night,

nine-year-old underground,

I read the end.

Suddenly defiant, attacked,

slammed into a wall,

sliding into coma, death

after the allies arrive,

too late, in clean uniforms so like his own

to shake their heads at the smell and mess—

the end I almost believe,

the end that chance keeps at bay

long enough for me to grow and flee,

my nightmare alive on the page.

Freed too late,

I close the book,

two hours vanished,

stand and try to walk

to the front door on uncertain legs

as if nothing were wrong.

No one must know.

I look at those around me

without seeming to,

an old skill,

making sure no one can tell.

Panic pushes me to the car

where the back window reflects

a woman, the unbruised kind.

In the space of three quick breaths

I recognize myself,

slam back into adult body and life,

drive home repeating a mantra,

“Ben will never hurt me--

All men are not violent,”

reminding myself to believe the first,

to hope for the last.

II

Years later, my little sister will sleep,

pregnant, knife under her pillow,

two stepdaughters huddled

at the foot of her bed,

in case her husband

breaks through the door

again. Finally,

she escapes

with just the baby.

My daughter calls collect

from a pay phone on a New Hampshire street.

She’ll stay in a shelter for battered women,

be thrown against the wall

returning to pack

for the trip back to Missouri,

a week before her second anniversary.

With her father and brother,

the trip home will take three days,

and she will call for me again.

Ana and Kay, who sat in my classes,

Vicky, who exchanged toddlers with me once a week,

Pat and Karen, who shared my work,

and two Nancys I have known,

among others too many to count,

hide marks on their bodies and memories,

while at the campus women’s center

where I plan programs for women students

on professional advancement

and how to have it all,

the phone rings every week with calls we forward

to safe houses and shelters.

In my adult life, I’ve suffered no man

to touch me in anger,

but I sleep light.

Published in Heart’s Migration (Tia Chucha Press, 2009)