Their footprints on her face - you could tell they enjoyed marking her up. I have seen my son the same, a joy of sloshing galoshes across a brisk sheen of new snow. It's something in the male; they can't stand just openness. They have to put things into it - a flag, a rocket, a foot, any signature of their spore. Being female, I felt sorry for her. Not that it will make any difference to lovers and harvests and I do realize we may need her some day, a stepping stone for some new hypocrisy of hope as we put distance between ourselves and our latest botch of civilization. But did the deflowering have to be so public? Did we have to wave the bloodied sheet? Columbus was kinder. This is a very female point of view, I realize, foolish, even sentimental. But it hurt, woman to woman, to see their footprints on her face, for women are, after all, only space. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CHAMBER MUSIC: 4 by JAMES JOYCE CAMPUS SONNET: BEFORE AN EXAMINATION by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET A PLANTATION BACCHANAL by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON ON A TUFT OF GRASS by EMMA LAZARUS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: TENNESSEE CLAFLIN SHOPE by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: WILLIAM AND EMILY by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |