The Dodos of Our Day
Pity the pretend defenders of decency,
the protests of baffled bullies in the pulpits
of patriarchal privilege who’ve long relied
on the fiction of feminine weakness and sin
to justify the unearned dominion of males
so easily distracted, disturbed and undone
by the merest glimpse of soft flesh, of female skin
that the only way to control themselves is to
smother women and girls under cover of veils
and social rules that treat all issues intimate
as property safe only in male possession.
Pity those cold and desperate to re-assert
authority over bodies not theirs, frantic
with fear of women thinking, working, threatening
the oppressive cultish deference to all parts
masculine required to preserve the lie of strength
exposed in equality, in women living
by their own choices, without “father’s” permission.
Sad it is to see the Akins, Imams, Romneys
irrational flailing ignorance in defense
of a “right” devoted to hiding the ego
fragility of the few who must be “in charge”
to feel secure, the few who over-compensate
for their own faults with weapons and words demeaning.
Pity them, so dependent on their own fiction
that just a little truth can mean their extinction.
(Marthe G. Walsh)
Many thanks to Marthe for the poem.
