Had I not been born
with that curvature which
bends my spine even now, I might
have yielded anyhow to the blows
dealt my sex, born in a world
which recollects only
at appointed time
the Sacred Female, Mother, Divine.
Other women with spines so bent
in days now gone would at last
repent on the rack, and cry yes
to sex with the Devil and yes
to the threats of crushed back,
women whose "sin"
was the bringing in of wild plants,
and the laying on of ancient hands.
I have been spared that end. I
have only to bear
the flinching within from
blows unseen and soft-spoken.
And now as I age I can voice
the hot rage
and the pain of all spines
men have broken.
In my seventh month,
heavy with the son
who will be a man, one day,
there was a night when
in my sleepless strain with
the flesh and bone pain of
my bent body's curse,
I challenged that I could not feel worse.
And in nightgown near dawn
I walked barefoot through town
in the dark, freezing rain, knowing
its pain
could harm me no more.
Perhaps that is what the freezing rain is for.