We Women

A poem that fits with my sort of pissed-off-but-unsure-why mood.

We Women

We women choose our battles--
we see the messes you men have made,
make no mistake.
We see the inequalities stacked up as far back
as your calendars reach,
and our calendars see farther, in all directions.
We are angry, yes,
but you cannot dismiss us
because of it,
write it off as that time of the month,
sprinkling jokes among your words like
stoning us with pebbles.
We are not fooled by our careers, fancy cars, or even
the occasional pair of comfortable shoes.
We know we still clean up,
we still cook,
we still make lunches and braid hair
and run coffee and kiss owies.
We wash the car
and let the dog in
and we see the dirty socks on the floor, but
we don't say a thing.

We still make less money for equal work.
We still are shown beauty in the tiniest of packages--
(the best-looking woman is so small she disappeared ages ago,
and they like it that way.)
We still compete with one another to be the best man.
We still watch our sons marching off to a battle we cannot stop.
We still still cut chasms between ourselves
with one incisive word,
Bitch!

We don't believe that feminism means
we gotta kick Man to the curb
with the garbage
he was supposed to take out three days ago.

We women know that the yoke upon us is
not made of man, not formed of flesh,
but of policy,
ignorance, money, and power.
We know that we have been backed into our corner,
fenced by our own anger.
We know that the grocery stores are laughing at us
as we fill our carts with quick-n-easy.
We know that our children are raising themselves
in our busy little images,
their fingers clutching toxic toys
in all colors of plastic.
We know that we own the word poverty,
twisting in our sides--

we women stuck,
suffering, sorrow stitched into our bodies,
into our souls,
into our dreams
with insidious little needles.
we women stuck--
doing our best.