Dissected: A Women's Alphabet

by Lori Von ColIn

Forgotten

all those centuries,

only recently tacked on

as an afterthought

to the end of any law or phrase,

as if this will make up

for rapes, burnings, drownings,

stringings up and holdings down,

valium-induced stupors--

we were so excitable--

you might think wed confused butcher

for husband, what with all that chopping

and wrapping--feet, frontal lobes,

Grade A genitalia.

No matter what you think

s/he is still slashed by that line

like a surgeons knife

cutting a radical mastectomy

taking the will with the muscle.

An 's' added to any he

is not enough--we are more

than men with curves--

we have our own biology,

our own way of knowing

blue and buttercups, bacteria and black holes.

Is he not confined, after all,

by her very alphabet,

she the very blood and bone

of his line and circle,

scratched across pages and divides?