Binary Opposition

Binary Opposition

 

I would cry.

And I think I have much to cry about,

A young girl chained

in the prison of himself.

She is this masculine skin,

This spinning of her father’s frame,

formed in the image of men.

But she is also

and cannot help but be her mother,

and feel the weight

Of her unseen breasts and the shock

Of hair that never brushed her face.

Of the silk she’d wear on her wedding night.

The life she’d give

and be given by.

She, daughter of the mother

who bore no fleshly daughter.

She, the chamber

Of female bone and female blood.

She, the one with tears unseen

As she is. So why not cry? Why not open

Both these eyes and see both ways

And in the seeing, say, this is not her.

The one she sees is I.

She is mind, not more.

Nor soul nor hand nor chest.

She only thinks of this self

As hers, but this one came before.

 

This one broke the womb:

A child to inheritance,

A call to wear his father’s hands,

Calloused as a crumbling tomb.

 

This is flesh of the oldest flesh.

Guts that do not shake

Nor shrink.

Muscle and meat to be threshed.

 

So let there be mortification.

Cut and break

And close the gap

on the unbroken lines of creation.

 

Mine is the striving for, the end

And all that’s excellent.

I will be courage and greatness,

And I will that I will not bend.

 

 

 

Author's Note

The two "voices" are supposed to mirror each other side-by-side. I can't quite figure out how to do that on Writer's Cafe, though.

Reviews

[kmartell]

It struck me that my mother is closer to creation, having given birth to me. This poems' blending and contrasting brought that insight, and so as we write we propel each other forward ...from your creative infinity to my creative infinity....