They tried to quiet the devil
tongue of Joan d’Arc.
But when her offering was laughter, rather than the death
wail of a doomed girl, they
realize that woman doesn’t make for good kindling.
Burned at the stake as sparks danced across her
skin like Salome seducing
a king. “Mother, what should I ask
for?” What’s a kingdom to retribution on a silver platter?
Cinders fell from her hip
bones in rhythm with the tears of Elizabeth the Mother.
That same fire intersected
with women deemed too mystical for the ordinary
backdrop of a small New England town,
the ropes and screams mixed into an unholy offering.
When the daughter of the giant-slayer was raped, the courts
whispered, “Did you see what she was
wearing?” She wept
a tapestry of fabric and ashes.
Pandora was too often blamed for being
a fire-starter,
and due to her
circumstance, she fell
for their lies hook, line, and sinking
into the primordial earth from which she’d been carved.
For eons women have been
crucified and hung
out to dry, set
ablaze for the second X.
Pain in childbirth. Pain
in cycles. Pain
in being. Too often
is she held
responsible for mankind’s troubles,
repeatedly and intentionally.
Throughout history she is
scattered
like embers.
Yet man is exalted for
purely existing. His raging cries grow
louder and louder until
they roar, the crackling
of flames heard between breaths. His fury
flickers and he
is coddled because boys will be
boys, even when their wrath spews
conflagrations everywhere. Eve got the shortest
rib in the set,
be thankful you were made
at all. Did Adam not also taste
the fruit?