Rape of the Moon

He thought he was the sun, a huge star.
Me, the moon, only there to reflect his power.
The moon must be submissive.

He attacked in the night, stealing my power.
I, in his orbit, under his gravity's grasp.
The moon must reflect his desires.

He spoke his lies. "Relax. You'll like it."
My cries blown away with his hot breath.
The moon must remain silent.

Orbits around the sun from so many moon cycles.
My time never all mine, nor is the night any more.
The moon bears witness of the sun.


Donald Trump and Billy Bush talking in 2005

A prose poem from the Southerner in me

All Those Who Ever Did Me Wrong Are White:
Why I am Nice to Black (and Brown) People

I don’t suffer under a burden of responsibility for all that I am a Southerner. It is in my blood to know that my great, great granddaddy Lev must have hurled his share of racial epithets, even if he was too poor to be a slave-holder like my great, great, great granddaddy from Virginia was. I hate it, but I don’t hold it in my bones. I think it is mostly because I identify, for all my pale pinkness, with the darker of my human sisters. For us, it was white men who reached into our drawers and pulled out whatever caught their fancy, with no account of the age of me or that slave gal.

Where He Put Things

He put his hand over my mouth,
assuring me with shushes, “Relax, you’ll like it.”

................................I didn’t, any more than you enjoy reading this.

He put bruises on my thighs,
my underwear down around my knees.

................................Bear [witness] with me here.

He put his penis inside me,
along with quite a few abrasions.

................................Breathe through the lines, don’t panic.

He put my arms up over my head, pinning me,
so skilled he must have had practice.

................................Stay with me.

He put fear in my gut, terrors in my nights,
and post-traumatic fugues in the mess he left of me.

................................Attend to my words.

By extension, he put pills down my throat,
cuts on my arms, and me in bed all day.

................................Softly. Gently. Unwrap the pain.

He put trust out of my reach until
he sat me on the psychiatrist’s couch.

................................Sit beside me. Listen.

He put me into training class to advocate for others,
strangely, leading me to college and grad school.

................................There are more of us here who can’t speak.

He put words in my mouth.
“Hold on.” “It’s not your fault.” “It gets better.”

Survivor Statement

The mother in me
would remove your lungs
by teaspoons over
a number of months,
watching your breath
grow precious.

She would have you
live long years,
seeing those
whom you have loved
die in your eyes,
waking you often
to view reruns.

The woman who
put her child to sleep
brushing circles
with her cheek on
a tiny head of baby hair
would hood you
and beat you on bare feet with
bouquets of barbed wire.

The sensible liberal
who is carrying my purse,
containing a card for
the ACLU and a copy of
the New Testament (NRSV),
petitions nightly to God
to deny you entrance to Hell,
sentencing you to a lonely
oblivion, conscious of your loss.

We dream of these and other
gruesome punishments for you,
often shocking the little
girl in me who had her own
nightmare offender, but we shush
her protests. She is not a mother.
The only thing that might
make it any bit better
is to never have been born—
you or I—it hardly matters which.

*not based on my personal experience, but someone is in this place, somewhere.

Why War Poetry is Like Rape Poetry

I have thought, ever since I began reading and writing poetry that poetry written by the warriors who return from battle and the poetry written by those who have experienced rape are eerily similar. This phenomenon was referenced in a piece on This American Life by a person who experienced rape and war and suffered PTSD. Listen here when it is available.

I am referencing other works in this poem as well:

Here, Bullet by Brian Turner

Daughterfuckers by me

Why War Poetry is Like Rape Poetry

Aside from the obvious

rape is a weapon in war
and a very cost-effective
high-yield weapon, at that

Aside from that

there is the trauma
the left-overs
the night-sweat screaming

And I am talking about the warriors here

not the populace
not the collateral damage
the war kind or the rape kind

‘cause I am a warrior, too, you know

ordered, without control
marching where and when told
my body not my own

I read Here, Bullet and I see myself

perched on a housetop
peering through scopes at the enemy
not sure who he was, is

I write Daughterfuckers and I see a soldier

told to suck it up
hiding the traumatic pain
wondering where to put the anger

It’s a wonder we survive at all

when we do, if we do
and the words we write-verboten
who wants to hear about that, anyway

Studying Music after Molestation

he would seduce me after my music lesson
offering attention and trauma in unequal measures
I would play scales for Blanche
and then pay the piper for him

Tommie would wonder why I was so ungrateful
stopping the lessons so soon
so late

my sister would have loved to play longer
but she didn’t have the advantages I was offered
lucky me

now I sit in a classroom listening to piano concertos
and fugues
I relate

hiding in the clefs and trebles are the notes
I recorded so deeply
this sonata’s third movement is especially chilling

I study music appreciation
tone, pitch, rhythm, timbre
all are here and now
it’s the history that trips me up

A Cold Day...

A Curse on those Offended by Rape Poems

You dare not stitch my lips
mending the part that offends,
whipping the edges of my condemnation,
hemming in thick layers of guilt.

I reject pointy fingers
and sharp intakes of breath,
hurtful as the pain
of forced intercourse.

Slashes in secret places
do not easily suture up.
We bleed far longer than
the stains on bandages suggest.

She did not dress
to have her wrist snapped
or toss her hair
inviting gangbangs.

Don’t ask her what she was doing
there, the same as you I reckon,
minding her own business.
Pray you don’t have to give account.

I will keep on counting meter
to match the thrusts of his hips
and dare you to keep pace
or outlast me. These lines

are not free verse. So having paid
I will stand and deliver
paying no mind to anyone not broken

My Whole Life

How I Prepared for a Poetry Reading
Domestic Violence Awareness Month, 2007

Crying in bed
Was just practice
for the tears they shed.

Dodging bullets was a drill
for weaving through a crowd
to stand before the one woman
I know wants to say something
but may not have the feet to walk.

I ate too much then for comfort.
I can work the room to dispense some,
skipping the cheese and crackers.

Worrying that he would kill us this time
prepared me to take into consideration
the fragile soul who is here somewhere.
I look around the room as I speak
and I spot her.

She is why I am here,
why after the journaling and the therapy
and the hunting for a peaceful spot
to live out the life I have created that
I came out three times this month
to speak before a crowd,
not my favorite Saturday pastime.

She does not write poetry
or hides it at home if she does.
People think she is ok.
She is a great employee.
She brings cake to the sick.
She laughs like anyone else,
but inside there is a crime scene
where soul murder has taken place.

See right there, the fast swallowing,
her eyebrows flicker when I talk about his hands.
She won’t fidget, but I see.
I know the signs from the inside out.

She is why I am here.
My whole life has prepared me
to speak to her.
Despite it all, I made it here,
loud mouth intact, still laughing,
thriving in my chosen spot,
never afraid to lay my head.
It was almost worth it.
Today, here, safe and whole
I can see there is more healing to do
and it is not mine this time.

The Woman in the Parking Lot
After Poetry Therapy

I can’t say
the things you say,
but they are true for me.

I had an un…
The words catch in her throat.

I had an uncle, too.
I don’t know how you do it.
Don’t stop, we need you.

And bright tears spill
out of her
onto the asphalt.

Can I hug you?

Always ask if they don’t.
Always ask.
Because they were tampered with,
bothered, touched, hurt,
all the euphemisms for soul murder,
so ask first.

And I do hug her and she
smells like hope and fear,
feels like promise and despair.

She will be skittish now.
She has said what she has not
to anyone else alive.
(three of us in this secret now)
I will be her first.

Don’t stop. We need you.

I do it for me and for you,
you know.
Once I couldn’t speak

but I wrote poems, lots of poems.
You keep writing, too.

Doing Yard Work, Recovery is Hard Work

I have mowed this yard for years.

I know that there are turns and twists

around the corner of the house

that you cannot see from here.

If you mow this yard, you may choose

not to go to the end of the daisies

and then pull back

where the tulips will come up in the spring.

You may mow this yard

and retrace each line

without turning around and I

always turned around at each end.

If you mow this yard, I can

watch you and call out advice

and encouragement. I can

pick up sticks so they won't

spin out from under to

catch you on the leg.

But if you mow this yard,

dear sister, please know that if will be

your muscles that push the machinery.

It is you who will sweat and curse the sun.

It is you who must do the work.

But I am here, in the yard.

I have mowed this grass many times.

I offer you iced tea

and words of encouragement.

Why I am a Better Victim's Advocate Than You are a Mother

What did you think when I told you
that he pushed aside my child's size 4 underwear
in order to plunge his man's size 9 hand into me?

Were you humming to yourself,
distracted by the ingredients to
some cake you were about to bake?

How long did you study on the facts
before you pushed them to the back
of your mind,
"I wish I didn't know that."

Did you think I would relent some day
and allow you to talk of him in chipper voice
as my daughter and I sat at your table
eating bowls of ice cream?

And when she had grown to a woman
and you did speak of him in pretty tones,
did you know she would shake her head
and hold me as I cried,
apologizing to me as though
she were the mommy?

How many miles have you traveled with him
in the same car on trips to see relatives
whose own little girls were in danger of his
special kind of love?

What in the hell were you thinking?

Did the years you spent letting Daddy
rain terror down on our heads
inure you to the pain in my guts
as I told you your brother is a child molester?

Because for the life of me,
for the very sanity of me,
I cannot imagine doing the same.

I want to be your little girl,
but you make it difficult
to shell peas on your porch
or make coffee in your kitchen
knowing you may one day go too far
and, against my one rule,
bring him face to face with me.

I have tummy aches at holidays
knowing you will let slip bits of information
about him
like other mothers drop hints
about presents.

So instead of the safety of your arms
I seek the voice of those who have
their own Uncle Mike
or have struggled under a gag
as a stranger has laid them bare
because when I listen, it goes like this...

First, I say I am sorry that this has happened.

Then I tell her that she didn't deserve it,
no matter what,
no matter where,
no matter who.

And I smile a little,
because it is not funny,
but no one deserves to see a frowning face
when they tell you about their rape.

I hold out my hand sometimes
for the ones who aren't about to jump
out of their skins.
Sometimes they take it.

I listen. I murmur soft words to them.

I don't bawl my eyes out,
because it is not about me,
but I don't try to hide the tears
that gather in the corners of my eyes.

I tell them the process is slow
or fast.
That she will heal and be fine
or have lingering fear.

I make no promises I am not ready to keep.

I play by her rules.
It gives her back
the control
some bastard
snatched.

When I am the advocate for a victim,
she need never wonder if I will wait
until she is distracted
to offer her a second helping of pain
instead of a tissue.

No More Valentines, Please (a prose poem)

The color could be covered, but the swelling could not. She is a lumpy woman; bumps on her head and sags at her hips, the one from him directly, the other from him through his kids. His kids, they are, even without his taglines on them. She is the page for his byline. Some writer, he, inscribing lines across her cheekbones. His generous use of punctuation leaves the reader with no doubt as to where the limits lay.

He loved her thoroughly yesterday, declaring it so in a long hail of sonnets ended with the most exquisite haiku. Something about “tiny pearl teeth”, she just can’t remember now exactly what. That happens more now. His words escape her mind. She drifts about, his muse. It is only when she undresses that she is able to read his love notes. Down her arm, inner thigh, circling umbilicus. The special poem he inscribed deep, deep inside where the pink of her bears witness to his first valentine. He cut it out himself with the knife he keeps in his right front pocket.

Daughterfuckers

Some men are just mean
daughterfuckers
pleased as punch to gouge out holes
where there should be none,
at least not yet.

And yet, for some reason,
Little Princess is expected
to burp politely, behind her hand,
never let the gas escape, (Cry Rape!)
“Oh, excuse me, so sorry!”

Do not become, my dear,
so destroyed in your soul
that you will spread your legs
and point, to that spot, (Crotch Rot!)
“Ouch, it hurts me.”

Young Ladies must cross their legs
at the ankles and tuck them, (Fuck Them!)
ever-so-politely to the side
better so to hide
the oozing pain that threatens to
puddle in plain sight.

Him, if you care to convict,
we will feed and water
and send to school
and give recreation, (Abomination!)
and release, fouler than any fart,
to fuck her again by proxy.

Just because he used the same parts
that make love to your darling,
and grow children for your garden,
does not make his act sex.
Talking about what he did is not
like ending prayers with “Shit”
instead of AMEN.

Oh
Hell
No!

The sacrilege has been done
by that dirty daughterfucker,
gentle nights sacrificed
on the altar of his prick.

So do not tell me I may not,
in polite company,
speak of rape
and incest
and pornography
and the thousand horrors visited
upon a thousand little girls (and
boys, them too,
scionfuckers making this
an equal opportunity tragedy)
don’t you dare.

I am not shutting up!

And upon the tiny vaginas
ripped open way too soon,
by the blood smeared sheets,
baptized with the tears of a thousand nights,
knife in hand if necessary,
to cut out the tongue
of anyone who dares
to silence her and her and all the hers (and
hims, I don’t forget)
I do solemnly swear
I will listen to the quiet words,
whispered into my ear,
as she faces the other way,
because she has been told
good girls don’t say those things (and
big boys don’t cry, now, Son)

So suck it up!

To My Sister: Please Leave Our Room

You have my old tennis racquet,
sleep in my Bob Seger t-shirts.
There are light spots on the wallpaper
where two beards and a Beard were
smashed by Pumpkins.

I preferred a magic, gauzy coverlet from India
to your layer cake of quilt, blanket, sheet, second blanket.
What makes you so chilly?

Is it the hand that reached out
to lift away your layers?
Do old night demons still
bedevil you?

I'm sorry to have left you
moving on as I did to recline on
slick couches coming finally to rest on
my own mattress. I can even tear the tag.

I sleep now in a room of comfort.
Green-painted walls for serenity--
I applied every drop myself
to know each flaw in the surface.

Not alone, my man rests easy along side.
My dog sleeps with one eye open, so I never have to.
No one slips beneath my covers now--
just my cat, Zelda.
She must be chilly, like you.

Leave the room, kiddo. It's so bleak in there.
I can't come back and drag you out--
Oh, I would.
The demon is now long gone
no more need for the racquet.
You have outgrown those t-shirts.
Why do you stay?

I know someone
with a couch.

Learning My Lesson

You never took me to school.
The too big bus took me to school.
I never went willingly.

What should have been a refuge,
overwhelmed.

I always assumed the worst.

If there were dogs,
they would bite me.
If there were people,
they would hurt me.
If there were lessons,
they would be hard ones.

Not hard, as in tough to learn,
but hard, as in tough to cover up

the fear,
the bruises,
the tears that always want to spill.

They give me away every time.

I am as good as got.

Those tears.
What I learned from you.

You never took me to school.
You taught me a lot, a space lot.


Note: A space lot is a family saying that I use a space lot. See more: here here yet again

You Take a Lot Out of Me

Can we talk?
I mean, since you’re dead and all,
and not really dangerous
and I get to make up your answers.
So, let’s talk.

I think of you,
when I think of you,
smiling.
Funny, that.
You never did much.
The good Lord knows
you were hardly fun.
Your smile was just that bright.

You were tall.
Six foot, five, I think.
Very dark hair.
Very blue eyes.
I still like that combination.
Little girls just love their daddy.

Daddy, what do remember of me?
Do you know I loved cats,
how I never whistled,
knew all the words to all the hymns,
dreamed of traveling the world?

I get sick to my stomach
when I think of the
you and I that weren’t.
We could have taken apart any subject
and fitted it into whatever shape we chose.
There were firesides waiting for us,
long evenings in the summer night air.
You never made the date.

Why was beer more fun than me?
Did you dance with those women,
sing to them like Jim Reeves?
Did you ever wake up hung over
and wish you had the guts to stop?
What were you thinking?

Did it get easier to disappoint me?
Or did it haunt you?
Do you remember before,
when Sherry was little,
and you were nice?
That’s how she says it.
“Daddy was nice then.”
I never knew you that way.
I wish I had been important to you.

You will be proud to know
you still have an effect on me.
The empty spaces in me were
never filled.
I have gotten used to them.
They itch sometimes now, hardly hurt,
phantom pain for the missing daddy spot.

That’s it for now.
I have talked myself blue in the soul.
Let’s wait a while for next time, ok?
It takes a lot out of me,
these little chats.
It always surprises me
just how you can still make me cry.

Going Back

There was no time to gather up clothes or toys.
There were never many of either anyway.

when we left

Many times there was a pistol.
Usually there were bruises.
Often it was night.
Once in a storm.

It was chaos when we left,
from the outside looking in,
but we knew our cues.
Right after the fists,
just before the gunshots,
during the screaming.

then we left

Mostly to Tommie’s house.
Sometimes to Sherry’s house.
Once to Doris Sartain’s house
in a storm.

after we left

Morning would come
Breakfast was had
Coffee was poured
Nothing was said
The ground would dry up
Daddy would show up

we'd go back

Cross my fingers
pray to God
plead to stay
come the day
we’d go back

There was no time to gather up joy or hope.
There was never much of either anyway.

Dead Daddy

Hello, I am your daughter, Jim.
James, I have your hair.
My brain could match you
thought for think.
My liver match you
draught for drink.

Good morning, Junior, it is me.
Jimmy, you’re my dad.
Down in Sheol I bet
you need me.
Hinnom’s offering,
you’d feed me.

Good afternoon, Dead Daddy, you.
Papa of the Grave.
Seems for you there’s no
Nirvana.
No cool drop from
Goddess Ana.

Sleep tight, Old Man, I won’t be back.
You’re no Abba to me.
This grown up girl has
had her say.
My message is, “There’s
Hell to pay.”

House Guest

I was certain you were gone.
How did you get here?
Did you travel on the stream of air that flew me
home and back when Leonard died?
Were you visiting other gravesites and just happened to show up at his?

Did you think, now this would be some fun.
Let’s see how long it takes for her to notice me?
I never realized she could be so amusing.
Puff of air to the back of her neck and she brushes at me like a fly.
Wait until she is asleep and crawl into her dreams to play like old childhood friends.
Games of the mind and games of cops and robbers.
You be the dead one, I’m tired of that part.

Do you like to sit and watch me that way?
Don’t you get bored with fucking with my head?
Lord, you were always a hypersexual man.
Not getting any in the hereafter is getting to you isn’t it?
So here you are in my house in Texas trying to ramp up a little action.
All those years we spent apart before you died
left you with a mistaken impression of me.

I am not four now.
I am the Mother now.
I don’t take kindly to men who mess with my daughter
and, since I mother myself now, that includes me.
Dead or alive, with evil spirits to help you,
You
Are
No
Match
For
Me.

Be careful, dead Daddy. Oh, do be careful.
Since you are here, I can think of a few chores for you.
Take out the trash that you left in my childhood.
Scrub out the nightmares I had in the bed I shared with Julie.
While you are at it, mend the dreams you shattered.
Run out and get me something cool to wash down the choked back tears.
Oh, I think you are going to make yourself useful around here.

Maybe you could stay another week.

Eating My Words

Daddy, you are consuming my poetry.
Hungry for more of me than you ever cared to notice before.
I cannot write of cat’s whiskers and motes of dust in light streams.

Only you.

Dead and buried you live on in my creativity.
Spending more time with me now than when I was a tiny girl.
I sit with pencil and paper awaiting what has always flowed so freely.
Movement from the corner of the room shows you lounging against a wall,
tall frame of you, in taller frame of archway.
You cock your head and smirk, blue eyes chuckling merrily,
Open your mouth to speak, then don’t,
never revealing what amuses you so about my current discomfort.

You are here.

As surely as I took myself away from you those years ago,
saving myself and my child from your disdaining presence.
As surely as you looked right through me at a chance meeting in WalMart
not knowing until I blurted out, “I am Cindy, your daughter.”
As surely as you never stayed long in my life and brought havoc home when you did,
the way other fathers bring home souvenirs of pencils and t-shirts.
Why won’t you stay truly once and for all buried in the ground of Tennessee?
How did you find your way to Texas, and me, hungry for a piece of my mind?

Go away.

Or if you won’t, then let’s hear what you want
and get you gone
and exorcise whatever demons travel with you.
I don’t have space for them here.
This place of sanctuary is intended for me,
for my Ariane.
We already have a Daddy in residence
and he does nicely, thank you.
So wipe that smirk off your face and let’s get to it.
You want poems about you, well here they come.

Lunch is served.

Death of a Good Man

They packed the freshly unwrapped presents into the van.
Goodbyes left unsaid –
he sat down and died.

Right there in the big comfy chair that Tommy will not now sit in –
He just died
on Christmas Eve.

Never having to slip-slide over icy West Tennessee roads,
he strode into Heaven instead,
avoiding the perilous path for a much safer one.

They pronounced him at the hospital –
thereby sparing my mother the ordeal
of knowing him dead in my sister’s keeping room.

So officially he died in an ER bed.

The ordeal to come was, instead, transferred to the shoulders of Tommy,
my brother-in-law, and to the conscience of Sherry,
my sister, who having saved so many before him,
could not press hard enough to lure his attention from those pearly gates.

In the days that followed,
we all did things we thought we never could.

I flew to the site of my previous undoing
to mother the mother who was my mother.

Tommy made 20 trips over still-icy roads
to midwife us all
to the places we were born to go.

Eliott, grown to the man the Chief had always dreamed he would be,
piped him over
and took the watch.

Sherry, more accustomed to holding the traces, dropped them into my hands and rested.

Surprising, the many ways we all reacted.

In return, that icy Christmas we got a present we could never have expected.

Children of a reprobate stood beside our mother as she buried her husband, our stepfather, a good man.