Their footprints on her face - you could tell they enjoyed marking her up. I have seen my son the same, a joy of sloshing galoshes across a brisk sheen of new snow. It's something in the male; they can't stand just openness. They have to put things into it - a flag, a rocket, a foot, any signature of their spore. Being female, I felt sorry for her. Not that it will make any difference to lovers and harvests and I do realize we may need her some day, a stepping stone for some new hypocrisy of hope as we put distance between ourselves and our latest botch of civilization. But did the deflowering have to be so public? Did we have to wave the bloodied sheet? Columbus was kinder. This is a very female point of view, I realize, foolish, even sentimental. But it hurt, woman to woman, to see their footprints on her face, for women are, after all, only space. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HINC LACHRIMAE; OR THE AUTHOR TO AURORA: 26 by WILLIAM BOSWORTH AN ELEGY ON SIR THOMAS OVERBURY; POISONED IN THE TOWER OF LONDON by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) AMY'S CRUELTY by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING THE KITCHEN CLOCK by JOHN VANCE CHENEY THE CHIEF WITNESS by GEORGE HERBERT CLARKE COUNTERS by ELIZABETH JANE COATSWORTH ASRAFEL HOLT by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE |