© Image by Travis Elborough

 
 
Amy Key was born in Dover and grew up in Kent and the North East. She now lives and works in London. She co-edits the online journal Poems in Which. Her pamphlet Instead of Stars was published by Tall Lighthouse in 2009, and her first collection, Luxe, was recently published by Salt. Amy is currently editing a new anthology of poems on female friendship Best Friends Forever, due from the Emma Press in November.
 
 
 
 
 
 
“Luxe (Salt Publishing, 2013) is a magnificent spree in a bric-a-brac shop. A haul of pre-loved and glittering objets – pralines in a crystal bowl, a handful of tame ladybirds, a portrait in vinyl and cola-cubes – are artfully displayed on the poems’ shelves to represent the conflicts and connections of a fabulous circle of friends and lovers, those real, remembered and imagined.”
 
 
 
* 
 
 
 
“”Layer your pulse/ onto my pulse,” she writes in ‘Brand New Lover’. “Dress me.” Only the reader knows if this is an order, an instruction or the sweetest sort of invitation. Read a copy of Luxe, keep it next to your fainting couch.”

– Julia Bird
 
 
 
“This delicious selection is a chocolate-box assortment of the work of one of my favourite poets writing today. Her delicate, dextrous writing belies the raw truths she tells. There are many centres to her confections that only reveal themselves when you take a bite. In her words “Poem with peep toes … Poem to conceal some feelings in … Poem to avalanche in your heart”. I love Amy Key.”

– Lauren Laverne
 
 
 
“If we are living in the material world, I want Amy Key to be my material girl. She makes her pleats and flounces move; she crowds the surface with colour and texture right where it needs to be to draw the reader in like a bee to the velvet bell of the foxglove; or like the silverscreen beauty who eats bonbons from a satin box, she wills our gaze to take it all in and to crave more. These poems are worn on the body, and like all great ensembles, they show just enough; they are hot and memorable.”

– D.A. Powell
 
 
 

© Image by Martine Charalambou

 
 
You Ought To Be In Pictures
 
 
In my depression the energy goes everywhere. It’s diffused. And where it’s intense it’s in very short bursts. Enough to scrub the bathroom or change the sheets. Enough to write a poem. My book is as though I pressed play and record each time I had a burst.

Last night I posted lines from my iPhone notes disguised as Twitter and Facebook status updates to see if any of them stuck.

I read someone else’s poetry for the first time and worry that my book will be perceived as being derivative of their book.

Someone asks “What is your poetry about?” I am embarrassed and say “me” but I mean “being a woman”, I think. But then I really mean “my experience of being a woman”. Later I wonder if what I really mean is “what I want my experience of being a woman to be, distress included”. I’d asked the poet Kate Kilalea to read my book and respond to it. She said:

“Aside from all their purely poetic elements, what strikes me most about Amy’s poems is the kind of idea of woman-ness which they work with. It feels like what is happening is a kind of valorisation – as oppose to eroticisation – of feminine vulnerability, which is different from what I’ve seen before.”

This was an important moment for me. An embracing of the woman-ness. After all I had the comment “I can see why girls like your poems” ringing in my ears.

My poetry is endless recalibration of experience.

My poetry is a way of mind-mapping my insecurities.

It’s all mood board.
 
 
 
 
 
 
I’m struck by what Steve Roggenbuck says in his essay ‘toward a more flowing culture’:

“i want to be your poet … i want to inspire you and talk to you. in many cases, I really want to be your friend.”

This idea of friendship compels me.

In my poems am I trying to communicate more effectively with people in my life or who might be in it. To say “Look! I know I come across ‘this’ way, but here is something else I want to share”. This being able to talk without my physical persona intruding is something I need. There are so many ways into the truth of a person.
 
 
 
 
 
 
In the documentary Grey Gardens there is a scene where Little Edie performs to camera. She sings and dances to ‘You Ought To Be In Pictures’. I find this scene very touching. Little Edie is a star, but she’s no longer the ingénue, about to be discovered. In singing it she’s saying to the crew “Look at me. I could have been someone” but also “Tell me I still could be someone”. It’s the “Tell me I could still be someone” that affects me. In my poem ‘On Typing Paper Stolen From Her Employers She Proceeds To Evolve A Campaign’ I get at this idea:

          Hopes should recede with age but this isn’t
          a right seeming present!

          […]

          My imagined future is a collapsed soufflé.

Never far away from dancing to ‘True Blue’ in the kitchen a grown-up’s face on. Never far from singing into the cassette. Singing into the dark. Hopeful someone will say what a nice voice you have. Never far away from maybe making it.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Just as Alabama, the main character in Zelda Fitzgerald’s Save Me The Waltz, in her hopeless pursuit of ‘making it’ as a ballet dancer feels that:

“[in] reaching her goal…in proving herself, she would achieve that peace which she imagined went only in surety of one’s self – that she would be able, through the medium of the dance, to command her emotions, to summon love or pity or happiness at will, having provided a channel through which they might flow”

I am my own delusional heroine. But I have to hope.
 
 
 
 
 
 
I am also forcing people to look at me. In my poem ‘Emotional State Seen Through A Pale-Haired Fringe’ I am, chronologically speaking, at the beginning of a deep depression. Unable to speak about it to anyone, just quietly falling apart, I write the poem where even:

          […] the at-boil kettle maddens the bully
 
          of your memory, and no one there to see it blow.

Is it that I’m terrified of no one seeing me live? Is that the role poetry is playing?

I’ve often wondered if I write poetry because I’m scared of dying. I fear I’ve been negligent of my own fortune.

          Inside I fritter soft as cinders.
 
 
 
 
 
 
One of the recurring images in my poetry is of the lost child. The much loved children’s book Where The Wild Things Are was made into a film a few years ago and I became obsessed with it. And heartbroken by it, by the isolation of the boy and his imagination. I began to write a series of poems, inspired by the film and by the soundtrack to the film, written and performed by Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The poems turned out as childhood memoir and in implicating my siblings I found I couldn’t finish them. One has made the book – Igloo – and in it I try to express the self-imposed, necessary isolation of the child:

          […] Instead of talk,
 
          we will have stronger thoughts.

This is both a resistance to talking – there are some things I cannot speak to the adults about but it is also a power I can have. The idea of having secrets that I can snap into being, like activating a glow stick appeals to me. The secret as super power and malevolent force.
 
 
 
 
 
 
I should really talk about love.

When I was in John Stammers’ group he asked me ‘what I wanted to be’. I told him I wanted to be ‘a great love poet’.

What I really meant was ‘I want to be loved’.

This was some years ago now. Truth is my experiences in and out of love haven’t been at all happy, but it seems to be all I can write about. Perhaps that’s the recalibration I mentioned earlier. A need to ‘right’ my love experience in poetry. In my poem ‘Your Year in Review’ I address myself:

          […] Your heart went rouge. Desire
          kept in a gold compact, fell loose of its casing. Powder
          went everywhere.

The sense that I make a mess of stuff can’t be escaped. But I lavish my attention on love less experienced, more felt. In absence of the grand, all-consuming Love Affair (in the presence of the paltry, ill-conceived ones) I act them out in poems. My nights pour into the absence of my One True Love. But I know:

          Even this crochet blanket won’t
          address the lack of requited laundry.

Really my ‘it would be better to be hurt than not have any love at all’ from my teenage diary is simply reworn as:

          […] rather a cupboard of cut-off ponytails than this! I want a life
          that warrants excessive exclamation!

I suspect all the poems are just an attempt to neutralise my self-image.
 
 
 

© Image by Rebecca Key

 
 
Brand New Lover
 
 
I’ve abandoned vanity, since I became a body
of pixels, never quite set, since you rippled
the apparent skin of me.

I’m all texture. Silk rosette, billowing coral,
tentative as a just baked cake. Sensations
slide over my knitted blood.

My mouth is a glass paperweight
to keep our tastes in, like maraschino
cherries and water from a zinc cup.

This is not about a future
with a decorative child. Layer your pulse
onto my pulse. Dress me.
 
 
 
*
 
 
 
To A Clothes Rail
 
 
Dress folded as an envelope and posted to me
Hand-me-down dress taken up, then taken down again
The one worn once, to a party
Age-appropriate dress
Dress the colour of your skin long underwater
Margot dress, Marianne dress, Marie-Antionette dress
Paper dress, never worn, purely decorative
Dress employed as stand-in
Silk dress with scenes from Labyrinth
Pattern for a dress, unmade
Dress embroidered with every song I’ve ever loved
Pinafore that comes with caveats
Two sizes too small dress, bought for its primrose
One last seen doing the hula down the precinct
Shift once worn in a dream
Dress as though assembled from vegetable peelings
Woodland dress in the style of a fawn
Poppy-print shirtwaist, won in a tombola
Dress for slow-dancing to ‘Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)’
Fancy dress in want of a petticoat
Cocktail-drinking dress, un-sittable-down in
Dress best worn with brutalist pendant
Smock to bring to mind a meadow
Old-fashioned dress in crepe with self-covered belt
Little black dresses (numerous)
Acid light projections dress for crazing the eyes
Formal wear gown for selling on eBay
Dress bought for funeral, frequently worn to detach from death
Dress last worn when someone cried for you
Fretful dress, to be cut up for rags
Palladium dress for looking into mirrors in
A cake of a dress – whipped to frou-frou
Scented dress of mustard seed, orange peel and almond milk
Glitter-bellied hummingbird dress
Ex-favourite dress, now not quite right
Perfectly acceptable dress, given the circumstances
 
 
 
*
 
 
 
Emotional State Seen Through A Pale-Haired Fringe
 
 
Dawn is coloured sweet pea and warbles with birds.
From bed, you notice how dust garlands

your fake yellow roses, but what now could
be gained by licking them clean? You could

plan menus, polish the mirrors, call your mother
and sweep the yard. Cleanliness, if not calm

in your reach. But, storm sultry, you lack
resources for comfort: the last velvet sleep;

legitimate wretchedness.
Others tell you, I too have felt alone.

Imagine them, teary on the sofa or wrenched
in the bathtub, all their wishes declined.

And then your own confines of lonesomeness,
where the at-boil kettle maddens the bully

of your memory, and no one there to see it blow.
 
 
 
*
 
 
 
We Should Be Very Sorry If There Was No Rain
 
For Sarah Crewe
 
 
I mention lately I’ve lacked a honeyed mood,
delicates have evaded me. Again I’ve spent too much
trying to ornamentally tile my life. The sofa’s worn
down where I always sit and though my diary’s
clogging up I don’t know how to project.
I am ashamed to want a someone. Social
engagements are propelled by wine,
as unease goes up, eyeliner goes on. Sometimes
I imagine you in your kitchen, stirring soup.
Sometimes I make broth and pretend it will work.
Darling, it seems there’s no awning
to shelter under. Or perhaps I’m under the awning
unable to step out. Someone might cake crumb
a path for me but it doesn’t do to rely on others
to ice your day. I can see the dead roses
are as pretty as the live, appliqué
sleep to my brittle concerns. I have an aspiration
you will recognise my handwriting, in time.
 
 
 
*
 
 
 
Igloo (Where the Wild Things Are)
 
 
When it is cold enough to slice the snow
we’ll build an igloo and we will live in it.
The igloo will be like a poached egg,
the snow dome hiding a hot yolk. We will grow

sharper teeth and bedtimes will be later.
I will be cook and you will make fire.
I have stolen sausages from mum
and this will do us for tea. There is a story

I can tell at night of a runaway child
and you will ask if it’s you. We have
two brothers, but they never let us take charge.
No one will know we are in the igloo,

but we’ll find a way of telling we’re safe.
Your best friend will be a bird and mine
will be a deer. The bird will bring us berries
and the deer will guard the door. Instead of talk,

we will have stronger thoughts. Our skin
will morph into something more warm. In summer,
we’ll make bricks of mud to dry in the sun.
 
 
 
*
 
 
 
High Voltage
 
 
Just as I woke, you stomped into my head
and I thought of everything that makes me admire you:
not just your sass and nerve (although
it does deserve an explicit mention ), but how
Neverland it is to spend time with you, like a pop-up theme park –
each day abundant with vivid wants,

like how you’re era-less, confident as a portrait,
inconsolably hungry, you talk easy as an adult –
seems even your glamour isn’t at the top of my list,
admiration being such an intimate reckoning of a

friend. If I can’t say it now, when?
Oh, there’s nothing ordinary about decadent warmth
real as foxgloves and glow sticks and winter birds,
did I tell you how much I want you to dance with me?
 
 
 
From Luxe (Salt Publishing, 2013).
 
Order Luxe here, here or here.
 
Visit Amy at Leopard-skin Pill-box Hat.
 
Read ‘Here, For Your Amusement’ and ‘”Too Gruesome!” at The Quietus.

International Domestic Violence and Abuse Agencies List
International inventory of hotlines, shelters, refuges, crisis centers and women’s organizations, searchable by country, plus index of domestic violence resources in over 70 languages
 

International Centres
 
 
Australia
 
South Eastern Centre Against Sexual Assault (SECASA), Australia
www.secasa.com.au/
 
 
Bolivia
 
Defensor del Pueblo
Advice Center
Heriberto Gutierrez 2374
La Paz Bolivia
00591-2 33269 (p)
08113538 (f)
email: fzambrana@defensor-bo.net
 
 
Belarus
 
Young Women Christian Association of Belarus
Krupskaya 2-70
220118 Minsk
Belaru 375-17 2 4637 45 (p/f)
email: ywcabelarus@telecom.by

 
Botswana
 
Metlhaetsile Women’s Centre, MWIC
The centre leads a campaign against the sexual abuse of children. This includes billboards, brochures, and informational workshops to accompany the work that the drama group is currently doing in schools around the country. As they travel from village to village, they are performing a work about sexual abuse in Junior and Senior Secondary Schools.

Private Bag 42
Mochudi Botswana
267-377239 (p)
267-377195 (f)
email: mwic@bc.bw
  
 
Canada
 
Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres
Vancouver, British Columbia
604-876-2622 (p)
604-876-8450 (f)
email: headoffice@casac.ca
www.casac.ca

Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres (OCRCC)
www.sexualassaultsupport.ca/

Every single rape crisis centre in Ontario is here:
http://ocrcc.wildapricot.org/Resources/Documents/Ontario%20SACs%20ListPublic.pdf

Victoria Women’s Sexual Assault Centre
Victoria, British Columbia
250-383-5545 (p)
250-383-6112 (f)
250-383-3232 (hotline)
email: vwsac@vwsac.com
www.vwsac.com

Sexual Assault /Domestic Violence Care Centre
Hamilton, Ontario
905-525-4573 (p)
905-525-4162 (hotline)
email: sadvcarecentre@hhsc.ca

Regional Sexual and Domestic Assault Program, Simcoe
County/Muskoka
Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital
Orillia, Ontario
705-325-2201, ext. 3284 (p)
705-327-9155 (hotline)
1-877-377-7438 (toll free from 705 area code only)
email: anaes@barint.on.ca

Ottawa Rape Crisis Center
Ottawa, Ontario
613-562-2334 (p)
613-562-2333 (hotline)

Toronto Rape Crisis Centre
Toronto, Ontario
24hour crisis line at 416-597-8808 or
email: crisis@trccmwar.ca
www.trccmwar.ca

Montreal Rape Crisis Centre
Montreal, Quebec
514-934-0354 (p)
514-934-4504 (hotline)
 
 
Estonia
 
Tartu Counselling and Crisis Help Center
Vaksali str. 14, Tartu 50409 Estonia
Phone (+372) 742 7555
Mobile (+372) 55 517 427
email: tnk@tnk.tartu.ee
http://tnk.tartu.ee/english.php
 
 
Finland 

The Rape Crisis Centre Tukinainen
PL 243
00121 Helsinki
Finland
+358 9 50 363 7872 (p)
+358 9 685 19 79 (f)
0800-97899 (hotline)
email: kristina.valkama@tukinainen.kolumbus.fi
www.tukinainen.fi/english/index.php/66-news/latest-news/1-welcome-to-joomla
 
 
Indonesia
 
Rifka Annisa Women’s Crisis Center
Email: Suharti
email: rifka@rifka-annisa.or.id
+62 274 553333 (p)
+62-0274-518720
+62 274 553333 (f)
 
 
Israel
 
Rape Crisis Center-Haifa
POB 44628
Haifa
04-853-0531 (p)
http://hrcc.1202.org.il/English/template/default.asp?siteId=4

Tel Aviv Rape Crisis Center
http://tlv.1202.org.il/template/default.asp?siteId=6 (Hebrew site)

 
Japan
 
Tokyo Rape Crisis Center
Jyoto
P.O. Box 7
Koto-ku, Tokyo 136-8691
81-3-3209-3692 (p)
email: wsw@tokyo-rcc.org
(Japanese site) http://www.tokyo-rcc.org
(English site) www.tokyo-rcc.org/center-hp-english.htm

 
Mexico
 
Casa Amiga-Centro de Crisis A.C.
Calle Durango Nº 1916
Fracc. Paseo de las Torres C.P. 32575
Cd. Juárez, Chihuahua,México
email: casa_amiga@prodigy.net.mx
Horarios de Oficina:
Lunes a Viernes
9:00am a 5:00pm Sábados
9:00am a 2:00pm Atención en crisis las 24 Hrs.
(656)690-83-00
www.casa-amiga.org.mx/

 
Namibia
 
Women’s Solidarity Support Work/Counseling Service
P.O. Box 23941,
Windhoek,
Namibia
264 61 26 22 75 (p)
264 61 26 22 75 (f)
 
 
New Zealand
 
Auckland Rape Crisis
09-3667214 (p)
09-3666887 (f)
09-3667213 (hotline)
www.rapecrisis.org.nz/

Victim Support
To reach your local Victim Support Group, call: 0800 VICTIM
www.victimsupport.org.nz

 
Pakistan
 
Sahil
#3, Street No. 32, Sector F-8/1,
Islamabad, Pakistan
92-51-260636, 252534 (p)
92-51-254678 (f)
http://www.sahil.org (specifically with child sexual abuse)
 
 
Philippines
 
GABRIELA–National Alliance of Women’s Organizations in the Philippines
P.O. Box 4386
Manila 2800
632-371-2302 (p)
632-374-3451 (p)
632-374-3452 (p)
632-374-4423 (f)
email: gabwomen@yahoo.com
http://gabrielaphilippines.wordpress.com/about/
www.omct.org/network/asia-region/philippines/m150/
 
 
Russia
 
Crisis Centre for Women

Главная

(812) 327 3000
You can also Skype them: crisis_center
 
 
South Africa
 
Rape Crisis–Cape Town
www.wecanchangeourworld.co.za/Profiles/NGONPO/RapeCrisisCentre/tabid/371/Default.aspx

Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust
PO Box 46
Observatory
7935
email: info@rapecrisis.org.za
www.rapecrisis.org.za

Counselling Lines
 
Observatory Counselling line 021 447 9762
Athlone Counselling line 021 633 9229
Khayelitsha Counselling line 021 361 9085

Observatory
021 447 1467 (p)
021 447 5458 (f)
 
Athlone
021 684 1180 (p)
021 637 9432 (f)
 
Khayelitsha
021 361 9228 (p)
021 361 0529 (f)

Rape Outcry
www.rapeoutcry.co.za

On the website this page has this additional information:
http://rapeoutcry.co.za/home/?page_id=158
For Survivors: Reporting the Rape
Information for Survivors
from the Crisis Centre at Helderberg Hospital, Somerset West
www.crisiscentre.org.za

 
Sweden
 
National Center for Knowledge on Men’s Violence Against Women
+46(0)18-611 27 93(p)
Clinic
+46(0)18-611 27 92 or +46(0)18-611 29 97
Visiting Address:
Uppsala University Hospital,
Entrance 17/18
Postal address:
Akademiska sjukhuset, SE-751 85 Uppsala
http://nck.uu.se/en/

Kvinnofridslinjen – National helpline
The staff is Swedish-speaking but will use an interpreter when necessary. Please hold while the interpreter is being connected. It may take up to 15 minutes. Kvinnofridslinjen 020-50 50 50 can be accessed only within Sweden.
www.kvinnofridslinjen.se

 
United Kingdom
 
Rape Crisis Federation-Wales and England
Nottingham
0115 934 8474 (p)
0115 934 8470 (f)
email: info@rapecrisis.co.uk
www.rapecrisis.co.uk/

For a map of UK rape crisis centers:
www.rapecrisis.org.uk/centres.php

Scottish Rape Crisis Network
www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk

Victim Support Scotland
15/23 Hardwell Close
Edinburgh
EH8 9RX
0131 668 4486(p)
0131 662 5400 (f)
email: info@victimsupportsco.org.uk
www.victimsupportsco.org.uk/page/index.cfm

Victim Support National Office
London
0845 30 30 900 (hotline)
www.victimsupport.org.uk/contact-us/london
 

North America

1. American Bar Association Commission on Domestic and Sexual Violence
   The Commission seeks to address domestic and sexual violence from a legal perspective. Its mission is to increase access to justice for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking by engaging the interest and support of members of the legal profession.
    
2. Asian & Pacific Islander Institute on Domestic Violence
   The API Institute is a national resource center focused on gender-based violence (domestic violence, sexual violence, and trafficking) in Asian and Pacific Islander communities. It addresses these issues by increasing awareness, strengthening community strategies for prevention and intervention, and promoting research and policy.
    
3. Battered Women’s Justice Project
   BWJP offers DV-related training, technical assistance, and consultation to members of the criminal and civil justice systems. The Project analyzes and advocates for effective policing, prosecuting, sentencing, and monitoring of perpetrators of domestic violence.
    
4. Child Welfare League of America
   CWLA is comprised of a coalition of hundreds of private and public agencies serving at-risk children and families. The League works to advances policies and strategies that promote safe, stable families and assist children, youth, and adults whose families don’t meet those criteria.
    
5. Equality Now
   Working with grassroots organizations and activists, Equality Now seeks to protect and promote the human rights of women and girls all over the world by documenting violence and discrimination against women and mobilizing efforts to stop these abuses.
    
6. Futures Without Violence
   FWV aims to advance the health, stability, education, and security of women, men, girls, and boys worldwide. To that end, the organization was a big player in developing the Violence Against Women Act (passed by Congress in 1994) and continues to work with policy makers and train professionals (doctors, nurses, athletic coaches, and judges) to improve responses to DV and educate people about the importance of healthy relationships.
    
7. INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence
   INCITE! describes itself as a “national activist organization of radical feminists of color advancing a movement to end violence against women of color and our communities.” Comprised of grassroots chapters across the U.S., the organization works with groups of women of color and their communities to develop political projects that address the violence women of color may experience both within their communities and individual lives.
    
8. Institute of Domestic Violence in the African American Community
   Run out of the University of Minnesota, the Institute has several clearly defined objectives: to further scholarship in the area of African American violence; to provide outreach and technical assistance to African American communities experiencing violence; to raise awareness about the impacts of violence in African American communities; to influence public policy; and to organize violence-related trainings on local and national scales.
    
9. Jewish Women International
   JWI seeks to empower women and girls through economic literacy, community trainings, and education about healthy relationships. The organization aims to end violence against women by advocating for policies focused on violence prevention and reproductive rights, developing philanthropic initiatives along similar lines, and inspiring “the next generation of leaders” by recognizing and celebrating women’s achievements.
    
10. Manavi
    Manavi, which means “primal woman” in Sanskrit, is a women’s rights organization committed to ending violence and exploitation committed against South Asian women living in the United States. The organization provides direct service to survivors of violence, grassroots organization aimed at changing communities, and awareness programs on local and national levels.
     
11. Mending the Sacred Hoop
    Relying on grassroots efforts, MSH works to end violence against Native women and children. Their overarching mission is “restore the sovereignty and leadership of Native women”; they seek to do so through technical assistance projects and organizing Native women to advocate for the end of violence.
     
12. National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence
    A national training organization, NCDSV works to influence national policy and provides customized training and consultation to professionals working in fields that might influence domestic violence.
     
13. National Coalition Against Domestic Violence
    NCADV works from the premise that violence against women and children results from the abuse of power on all scales, from intimate relationships to societal issues like sexism, racism, and homophobia. Therefore, NCADV advocates for major societal changes that will eliminate both personal and social violence for all people by building coalitions, supporting shelter programs, providing public education, and developing policies and legislation.
     
14. National Domestic Violence Hotline
    The Hotline provides 24-hour support and crisis intervention to victims and survivors of domestic violence through safety planning, advocacy, resources, and a supportive ear.
     
15. National Latino Alliance for the Elimination of Domestic Violence (ALIANZA)
    Allianza is a network of organizations addressing the needs of Latino/a families and communities by promoting understanding, dialogue, and solutions that aim to eliminate domestic violence in Latino communities.
     
16. National Network to End Domestic Violence
    NNEDV is an advocacy organization made up of state domestic violence coalitions and allied organizations and individuals. The organization works closely with its members to understand the needs of domestic violence victims and programs, and then voices those needs to national policymakers.
     
17. No More
    No More arose from the desire to unite the diverse array of groups working to end domestic violence and sexual assault. Hundreds of representatives from the violence and assault prevention field collaborated to develop a symbol that unites all people working to end these issues, with the end goal of ratcheting up public awareness. The blue vanishing point symbolizes “zero,” representing the organization’s desire to reach zero incidences of domestic violence and sexual assault.
     
18. The Northwest Network
    Founded by lesbian survivors of domestic, the NW Network works to end abuse in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities and to support and empower all survivors through education and advocacy.
     
19. Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN)
    RAINN is the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization. The Network created and operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline (800.656.HOPE) and operates the Department of Defense’s Safe Helpline. The organization also runs programs to prevent sexual violence, assist survivors, and ensure that rapists are brought to justice.
     
20. V-Day
    Founded by author Eve Ensler and activists from New York City, V-Day is a global activist movement seeking to end violence against women and girls. The organization stages creative events – most famously, The Vagina Monologues and the documentary Until the Violence Stops – to increase awareness, raise funds, and support other anti-violence organizations.

 
Other

International Justice Statistics
 
The World Factbook of Criminal Justice Systems

Please note that submissions are closed.

The introduction to our protest can be read here.
 
Please refer to our list of International Resources for Rape Support here.
 
 
 
 
 
 
No Traces Left
Rajathi Salma, trans. Kalyan Raman
 
 
There are objects
everywhere in this room.

Vases await
the visitor’s gaze.

This bed, which reminds me
of pregnancy
and fills me with fear,
is the weapon my Master wields.

Why can’t this stage mirror,
playing host to my image,
chat with me for a while?

The electric fan, though,
is tricky enough to keep me
from fleeing this room
in search of breeze.

The windows
bring in nothing
from the outside world
these days.

When I rock the crib,
I recall
for no reason at all:

The honey I sipped
through a strange flower’s stem;

the almond fruit
I stole, just this one time,
from Chinnani’s garden;

The time I ate a poisonous root,
mistaking it for a tamarind stalk.

Taj—a child who peered too close
while I sharpened my pencil,
got her face gashed and wept—
is mother of three now,
and supplies milk.

The endless loneliness
of the barren old woman
in a white sari.

What refuge remains for a woman
whose traces are wiped clean?

For whom will the morning sun
dawn white on the low sky?

Even as those who are afraid,
and those who are ignorant,
of death, are dying still,
I have a strange dream:
There’s a newspaper story
of my being raped by some men
while I was walking alone on the road.

This life—impossible to pursue,
with a myriad of lifeless objects
and one man—
goes on regardless,
inside the same room.
 
 
 
From Salma: Filming a Poet in Her Village (OR Books, 2013).
 
 
 
 
 
 
tuesdays
Dorothy Lehane
 
 
                              tuesdays are straight hell,
holding up fury as Wild pallbearers/I tear up his photos
and yet we wait for/ask          Who am I kissing,
which poor boy playsHide and Seek,
          thumbnails of childhood
and yet we wait for/ask          your aphasia to end
we talk Body memory/no, never
talk Fluids, only the direction of feet
          his tells/ Warn&change          by world
taking you back/this tuesday, I burnt
          his photos
your therapist              sobs /sees-through your world
an eye/is an eye watching&eight years/too long for rampage
my god,
          when you slip into the present tense
          your aphasia burns,
the way photos burn/we never talk Fluids
I will burn his photos/destroy all/from your mother’s house/
you will never see/we will never talk Fluids/
each tuesday, straight hell/calling you back from
/your mindsick thrum
 
 
 
 
 
 
Incest
Laura Madeline Wiseman
 
 
Though the word is never said, it speaks
from the shadows of the dorm room—like a specter,
like the electricity snapping off—its n the number of times,
infinite and variable, the i small and singular and his.

He says don’t tell. He’s told no one. He holds me
on the couch beside him, the beds lofted
far above us, the thump, thump of bass
of passing cars, the overhead lights suddenly bright,

after I have seconds with the words, years with other horrors,
I say okay, choking on the o,
holding the s far back in my throat for his sister,
like a hiss, and that terrible t, that cross
unbearable, unholy, his wrong.

After that night, he erases me
from his life, imagining that dark e
like a half-eaten apple, like a face laughing
behind my eyes. It was never that,
it was soft, the sound the breath makes when escaping.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Letter to Myself
Dawn Garisch
 
 
My darling,
the sun stood over your birth
high noon, zenith tides,
unwanted third child.
          I’ve not seen anything like it
          the doctor said,
witness to your lack of suck
your starving rage.

My dear child,
embedded in one of many beds
white, like rows of teeth, awake
and hungry during long dormitory nights.
          She’ll go far
          your teacher said.
Trapped inside a cubicle
you walked into a book.

My beautiful girl,
behind glass and starving
wanting to say yes to dross
lest nothing better come your way
          She’s got a cunt a mile wide
          a complete stranger rumoured.
Another took you out and raped you.

My woman child,
brewing miracles in the cauldron of your pelvis
out of the dregs and husks of hunger.
Your babies drank rich food
their Buddha bodies turning warm to laughter.
          You spoil them
          your mother said.
Your wolf hunger leapt up,
snarling, at her neck.

My lover woman,
earth draped round you like a shroud,
your snailfolds fouled three times
your heart three times impaled.
          I told them all how much I love you
          your husband Icarus said.
You turned away and traveled far
to find a different ending.

My witch woman,
rooting seed into the ground these three years,
staking out a fresh bed under a moon sifting flourlight.
Your belly gnaws and growls its pleasure
at the coming harvest.
          Even kings are sacrificed to soil
          your unearthed brother says.
Let us feast
on the round of each other.

Myself: my life,
deeply soiled, branching over;
let my dances be windfall
and my words fruit in windfall.
          Enough, I say, enough!
          There’s abundant food, enough for all
Even for worms when I die.
 
 
 

© Malgorzata Lazarek

 
 
The Gender and Law at Durham Research Group
Anna Woodford
 
 
are discussing provocation: holding law up to the light.
Their chairs clash at an inadequate table.
From the postgraduate student – her name written in silver
around her neck – to the professor who has brought cakes
out of her backpack – no-one is afraid to use words
like contempt and coercion, or simply to shout
for milk or sugar if that is what they want.
This office is the opposite of a room with a low bed
where a woman might be held down so long.
I want to end with this office. I want to linger here all afternoon.
 
 
 
Published in The Rialto.
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Prison Art
Marí Peté
 
 
Sugarcane hills cradle Eshowe
this warm winter’s afternoon.
I enter into a quiet room,
step closer to counterpoints
caged by frames:

A family holding hands around a table –
yes, here, “The sun does arise,
The birds of the bush,
Sing louder around,
On the Echoing Green.” *

I am assailed
by the other painting’s
slashed, dark shadows.
Here, “The sun does descend,
Many sisters and brothers,
Like birds in their nest,
On the Darkening Green.” *

Next door a young man’s song
escapes into the afternoon:
Ninety-nine red balloons …

In the Dhlinza forest
duikers dart across the path.
Pause, nuzzle in a sunlight shard.
And I ponder the possibility
of homecoming
from experience, to innocence.
 
 
 
* From William Blake’s poem ‘The Echoing Green’, in his illustrated collection of poems, Songs of Innocence and of Experience.
 
 
 

© Malgorzata Lazarek

 
 
The Merchant’s House
Jenny Hope
 
 
My Master’s house holds colour.
Within winter’s flaxen skies

the sun hidden, he bids me
touch those sudden bolts of red,

subdued at first, then spilt.
At night the Sleep of Plants

protect their budded young.
There are many faces to green

though each is weak in light.
Ripened men take buckthorn

shade anointed flesh. Lush.
And the sap damp to the ears.

Washed and washed again,
Walwort’s stolen blue fabric

seethed in water, left out to dry.
My firmament unstitched.

I watch for the seam of light
beneath wood. My Master comes

with my sky-skinned elder-black,
starred where the dye’s uncaught.
 
 
 
Originally displayed at the Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings in 2012.
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Water To Quick Lime
Louise Crossley
 
Dedicated to Caroline Criado-Perez, Stella Creasy, Mary Beard …
 
 
A woman who dares step into the spotlight
Will burn in the acid of bigotry and hatred released
As surely as if she were water to quick lime:
A special chemistry ignited by the wrath of inferiority;
A match made in spleen, and delivered,
Like warped Valentines’, by post.

The message? “Shut up, or put out!”
“Step outside the box we have made for you,
We will force our way into yours.
Speak out on issues beyond our reach,
We will haul you down beneath us,
Deny your brain; speak only to your sex.

And speak in terms so violent, so ferocious
You cannot fail to hear how you are disregarded:
How you are feared and hated.
Open mouth means open legs. Quid pro quo.
Quid – cheap; Pro – whore; Quo – ‘Piledriver’.
And we will drive you to silence; pile you with fear.

It’s your own fault; you’ve brought it on yourself.
If you want a place in the world’s biggest playground,
Toughen up. Roughen up. You’ll like it rough.
If I meet you in an alley you’re gonna get fucked.”
One hundred and forty characters the limit of your bravery.
Hidden in courageous anonymity. Spirits, phantoms,

unseen spectres with concealed guts.
Well my balls are on my chest. Look on me!
Daughter of the Morrigan, I feed on ghosts not fear them.
And with each generation, from Eve to eternity, I grow stronger.
So kick out my living womb. Dis-arm me, gag me
And gang rape me with my severed limbs.

I will scream your Banshee’s death wail.
Punch out my teeth to silence me
And hundreds more will spring up in my place.
I am the Hydra: many heads, but one voice.
I am a woman with an opinion.
And I will be heard.
 
 
 
 
 
 
At the Home of a Colleague from the Child Protection Unit
Liesl Jobson
 
 
I would like to hang my face, Inspector
upon your wall, beside the carved masks,
reproductions of Africa’s ancients – hunter, warrior,
sage and seer – and deposit beside dried flowers
in your vast ceramic pot, my withered heart,
my brittle bones; so that I might reveal
how scarred I am by the work we do,
a tiger without teeth; scared to confess
that like the aesthetically pleasing
synthetic vegetables in your wicker basket
decorating your railway sleeper patio furniture
my mock skin is too thin.
Your chairs are solid,
like you are, Inspector
when gathering clues of another abducted child,
when noting in cool black ball pen
another infant’s ruptured rectum.

I can no longer keep my face affixed
with idle chatter: Nice day, Sargeant.
How’s the puppy, Captain?
And your diet, did you skip your carbs today?
I need another colour rinse.

My fear, like my roots,
like my sixteen-week bump
is starting to show.
 
 
 
Published in the Mississippi Review.
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Biological Fantasy of Weaponry (The Treachery of Images II)
Theodoros Chitos
 
 
Oscillatory processes give the impression of precision: all appropriate
capabilities will be applied in a synchronised fashion.
We have been invited to join the inspection teams.
Joint operations will ensure that an isolated population
                                                                       will be the founding stock of a new species.
Operation Overlord was on the to-do list that morning
but the storm glass was accurate in its forecast:
“the vastness of space will permit a loss of territory”.
                                                                                 We have since been forced to adapt.
We are using night vision to look at our reflection.
We entertain the idea that we are noctilucent creatures.
                                                                                                                     (A silly fantasy)
In reality we are ghost channels:
                   You can hear the bang only because we have already heard it ourselves.
We contain noise:
most days we are little more than wind tunnels.
It is only rarely that we fantasize about being
a set of cheap barometers registering the existence of sound
                                                                         instead of measuring atmospheric pressure.
The sound of a gun going off and the thrush’s song
sound identical under extreme atmospheric pressure.
When the liquid in the glass is filled with small stars, war of the words ensues.
There is a significant difference between mass extinction
                                                                                                  and background extinction.

The hard science of the struggle for existence collides
with the activation of the immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome.
The vastness of space will permit memory loss without suffering
a mortal blow to our survival.

Corroded wiring and a ringing doorbell: how can we be possibly hearing
                                                            something that should not exist in the first place?
Pigmented tissue and epithelial cells contract pulling back folds
of smooth muscle; it is only then that you realise that the word “reconstruction”
could be made out on the “incised wounds
                                                                                                             of the left wrist”.
 
 
 
 
 
 
A Girl Like That
Michelle McGrane
 
Corrective rape is a hate crime in which a person is raped because of their perceived sexual or gender orientation.
               – EE Bartle, ‘Lesbians And Hate Crimes’, Journal of Poverty, 2000
 
 
The newspaper report said
the young woman was
repeatedly raped, kicked,
beaten within an inch
of her life, while her mama
cried behind the door.

Two manly relatives decided
to straighten her out
once and for all, give
her strong medicine down
on her knees, the cheeky
cunt had it coming.

A girl like that, what did
she expect? Shameful lesbian
bitch brought dishonour
to the family name,
refused to come round
to their way of thinking.
 
 
 
Published in Binders Full of Women, ed. Sophie Mayer and Sarah Crewe.
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Spunk
Jacqueline Saphra
 
(after  Jacob Epstein’s Sculpture of Adam)
 
 
His cock hangs at half mast; it’s primed to score:
rising, monstrous; nothing like those bland
and flaccid members in rooms 3 and 4.
Drunk on lust, pumped up with blood, he stands
broad on his plinth and howls for cunt. Who’d dare
to leave that call unanswered? This is where
we find the source: that first, primeval sin:
he forced an opening, she let him in.

Later they wrote she asked for it – her pink,
seductive flesh, the bruise and not the kiss.
You ask who wrote those books: who do you think?
Would you, with longing, spread your legs for this,
bear more like him? It seems so far to fall.
Must this man be the father of us all?
 
 
 
Published in Binders Full of Women, ed. Sophie Mayer and Sarah Crewe.
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Rapping when you don’t know the words, or the stupid things
teenage American boys say in the Place des Vosges. A found poem.
Kate Noakes
 
 
I’m like, yeah, like, I actually like, know a lot, like, about art.

She sees the same things as me.

I’ve got a tan line coming on.

If you fall asleep baby, it’s gonna suck.

Why are all the houses here the same?

She say no, when she means yes.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Spell for Healing
Angela Topping
 
 
Go deep into the forest of yourself.
Notice the wood anemone, the bluebells.
The birdsong is a cape of spells.
The river sound carries away the hurt.
The leaf mould renews itself
into fine soil to grow fresh saplings.

Please note that submissions are closed.

The introduction to our protest can be read here.
 
Please refer to our list of International Resources for Rape Support here.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Anniversary
Barbara Smith
 
Strength is born of hardship, but is no protection against it.
                                                                                       Country saying
 
 
Every Christmas she expects the phone call:
a basso whisper that rasps out queries:
Will you be there … on such-and-such … a barely-
there presence on the line that stonewalls

her, yanks her back twenty years to her default
summer. Fifteen, still unscathed, bleary
from too much sun, she stumbles as he blithely
grabs her from behind – all he was before, made false.

Now she thinks of these stupid children’s books
from remaindered bookshop bins – every year –
for children he’s never met. He will not comprehend.
There are no scars – she thinks – but those you choose
to wear. That all happened to another girl: but this year –
this year, there will be no more Let’s pretend.
 
 
 
 
 
 
From ‘Bloodlines: An Emperor’s Crown’
Bethany W Pope
 
 
I
 
She cups her hands against the place where breasts will grow,
Over her visible ribs, that empty place seemingly
Made to accept a wound. The shivs were constructed of
Every available thing. Hers was a bartered razor
Punched into the end of a blue toothbrush handle. Her
Enemy, her rapist, had a real knife stolen from the
Open kitchen. Her housemother handed her the key.
People do not realize that girls can rape. Media
Leaves this off the newsfeed. An unacknowledged truth, that
Everyone is capable of violence, even victims
Grow weary of remaining that self. This girl
Realized that she could make the violence stop. For her.
Even a jagged scar across the right pectoral
Would shrink with years. Look. See? It has nearly vanished.
 
 
II
 
Necessary comfort cannot bear the weight of
Earthly suffering. I am the woman at the window,
Arranging my books. Every few minutes another shock
Rocks me. That iron shovel blade connecting again,
Long years after, with my aching jaw. My back teeth are
Yellowing, but the false front incisors are white and whole.
Every day I feel it again, the rape, the
Violence. A hard tide smacking into me, coating
Everything in red. My fingers smudge the pages. I’m not
Really reading, I’m reliving. It never seems to end;
Years of constant re-iteration. My black eyes
Open wide at any sound; the scrape of spades in sand, a
Neighbour’s child crying, bovine mothers wailing for their
Escaped calves. I never used to be this broken.
 
 
III
 
Outside of modern ken, below the surface where
No contemporary current can direct you,
Lakes of unconscious beauty spread in myth pools, fed
Yearly by the memories of our blood. Great-grandfather
Purchased his wife—young enough to be his daughter, black eyed
Urchin, native miner. She birthed Daniel, who sired father.
Returning to my mother, the suffering semi-saint,
I know that she and her father were both raped by
The man who thrust him into his mother. Over
Years, through genetics, these stories sank into my bones.
I am a product of my parents, in figure and fact,
Self determined by Vocation, will and by my marrow.
My blood made the form, I must fit. Every sonnet
Yearns for love. It doesn’t have to be romantic.
 
 
 
Published in Crown of Thorns (Oneiros Books, 2013).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 
 
 
 
From ‘Crown of Thorns’
Bethany W Pope
 
 
I
  
Water and blood swirled between fingers, down the black drain,
soap stinging the tattered flesh of your girlish vagina.
Your gasping mother drew back the cloth and never flinched
her Celtic blood would not allow surrender
to emotions. Her body stiffened as far
as pregnancy let it. Beneath her breast your unborn
sister kicked against her borrowed bone-cage, never knowing
that she would die before her birth, her heart broke for you
the way your mother’s never could. She laid her hard, strong hand
among your curls, the only comfort she knew,
calling for your father who looked, cursed his rage
and started drinking while she packed your lives in boxes.
He quit his job, loaded the car, left no addresses
for your Grampy to follow, though of course he tracked you down.
 
 
II
 
Growing flesh around the darkened hole death springs from,
the bark hardens around the hollow in the bole,
the secret place you love for no known reason.
Dressed in a chiton, playing the role of nymphic
servant to unseen Pan, you slide into the loamy darkness,
your wood-rot scented hide. Adolescent haunches
squat in soft soil. You have a shepherd’s pipe you bought
with two week’s allowance. Treated bamboo and garish
dyed bands, producing a sound your mind makes melodious.
The tree speaks with the borrowed breath of a wounded girl.
Saturday is for hiding, drawing strength from the earth.
Sundays still belong to Grampy, his evil, elderly
entitlement; right of the patriarch to penetrate
beyond the heart of innocence, which grows no armor-bark.
 
 
III
  
You never knew your spirit was twinned, body split
between a longing for purity you never
could feel and the urge to strut your span across the stage.
High-school was hard. You ironed your curls until they burnt,
worked at McDonalds to pay your parent’s rent.
Breasts grew at last, Grampy left you alone to plan your
escape, flee from your roots. You took secretarial courses
your father pushed (something to fall back on) and saved enough
to supplement your scholarship. Your torn spirit called
for theatre and dance, some skin to slide into, an ego
borrowed and strong, binding the wound he drove into your trunk.
You specialized in sluts and tragic heroines,
landed many paper parts, scraped the words into plates
you wore above your sores. They never healed, worsened, or closed.
 
 
 
Published in Crown of Thorns (Oneiros Books, 2013).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 

© Aprilia Zank

 
 
During World War II, Japanese soldiers kidnapped young girls aged 11 to 16 mostly from South Korea and China, forcing them to be their sex-slaves. Most of the women are long dead, but a few remain to tell their story and are still waiting for some kind of apology. This year, the Mayor of Osaka made a statement about how “comfort women”, were necessary. During this same war, one of the most horrific war-time brutalizations of women took place – The Nanking Massacre – also by the Japanese. In my poem, I wanted to address this relationship.
 
 
 
The Rape of Nanking by Men, Comforted by Rape
Sascha Aurora Akhtar
 
 
(December 13, 1937)In Nanking, an exhibition of atrocities (China) that
Cannot even be whispered out loud (w-a-r) waged by man (to win) for
Man to (win), to rise victors, trooping colours over territory captured, only
(How did) human Body become territory (how does)

ffffffffffffffffffffffffBattlefield fffffffffffffffff become ffffffffffffffffffff Woman ffffffffffffffff Body;

anyonecanunderstandthatthesystemofcomfortWOMEN(Mayor of Osaka)was
n-e-c-e-s-s-a-r-y to provide r-e-s-p-i-t-eforagroupof high-strung,roughandtumble
 (a pride of cocks) “men” bravingtheir “lives” (2013)underastormofbullets

On Dec 13, 1937 in Nanking, an exhibition of (China) atrocities; in
Preparation, those girls (girlchild in the dark) pinioned(200,000), you
Assailed, you tore out of their safe havens, homes, you stole their
Lives, to create you say A System Of ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff trofmoc
ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff   trofmoc
fffffffffffff trofmoc fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff (Your w-a-r IS
with Woman) anyonecanunderstand. It suffocates to utter trofmoc murmur, it chokes
trofmoc ; spit

C fffffffffffff O fffffffffffff M fffffffffffff F fffffffffffff O fffffffffffff R fffffffffffff T fffffffffffff

fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff Woman, (who) comfort you?

fortheoperationof(MEAT MACHINE; THE)w-a-ritisacceptableandnecessaryto
ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff     Violate
Theveryhumanrightofthemostsociallyvulnerable: FEMALE
fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffAdult fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffChild
It is the very significance of
Woman, you sought to extinguish her
Structure, you anatomized her assemblage, you
Dissevered her essentia. You sliver. stomp.fff stomp. fffffff stomp. fffffffff fffffff stomp.
Butchers, you wheting your tools parading your
Flags (on)Woman Body, the ceremonial
Battlefield is. girl.body.child.body.body anyone. fffffff
                                                                          girlchildwoman  *threat*
anyonecanunderstand.

In Nanking, an exhibition (20,000) of
Atrocity(child). Explicit(elders)Mutilation(anyone
Can)Systematic(woman)Violation (anyone can)(understand)

ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff fffffffffffffffffffffRaped.to.Death.to
fffffffffffffffffffffff ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffraped.to.deathraped to

fffffffffffffffffffffff ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffDeath.
                                                                                                         Woman, (who) comfort you?

In Nanking ( fffffffffffffffffffffffff ).
 
 
 

© Victoria Bean, ‘Bang bang’

 
 
Bearing Witness
Ellen Bass
 
For Jacki Phoenix

          If you have lived it, then
          it seems I must hear it.
                                        —Holly Near
 
 
When the long-fingered leaves of the sycamore
flutter in the wind, spiky
seed balls swinging, and a child throws his aqua
lunch bag over the school yard railing, the last thing,
the very last thing you want to think about
is what happens to children when they’re crushed
like grain in the worn mortar of the cruel.

We weep at tragedy, a baby sailing
through the windshield like a cabbage, a shoe.
The young remnants of war, arms sheared and eyeless,
they lie like eggs on the rescue center’s bare floor.

But we draw a line at the sadistic,
as if our yellow plastic tape would keep harm
confined. We don’t want to know
what generations of terror do to the young
who are fed like cloth
under the machine’s relentless needle.

In the paper, we’ll read about the ordinary neighbor
who chopped up boys; at the movies we pay
to shoot up that adrenaline rush—
and the spent aftermath, relief
like a long-awaited piss.

But face to face with the living prey,
we turn away, rev the motor, as though
we’ve seen a ghost—which, in a way, we have:
one who wanders the world,
tugging on sleeves, trying to find the road home.

And if we stop, all our fears
will come to pass. The knowledge of evil
will coat us like grease
from a long shift at the griddle. Our sweat
will smell like the sweat of the victims.

And this is why you do it—listen
at the outskirts of what our species
has accomplished, listen until the world is flat
again, and you are standing on its edge.
This is why you hold them in your arms, allowing
their snot to smear your skin, their sour
breath to mist your face. You listen
to slash the membrane that divides us, to plant
the hard shiny seed of yourself
in the common earth. You crank
open the rusty hinge of your heart
like an old beach umbrella. Because God
is not a flash of diamond light. God is
the kicked child, the child
who rocks alone in the basement,
the one fucked so many times
she does not know her name, her mind
burning like a star.
 
 
 
Published in Mules of Love (BOA Editions, 2002).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Pomace
Cristina Navazo-Eguía Newton
 
 
Nona is in the kitchen,
kneading the dumb dough, letting
the mummed oil drip,
siving the flour of hush,
the knives’ fangs as quiet in the sink
as when slicing the muscle of love,
the tegument of life pursed in a shell.
Nona is in the kitchen, the door ajar,
her heart zipped up in the lull of kneading
to the noise of me prised open with a tiny crack,
the snap of freshly harvested clams.

Behind Granddad’s shoulders,
the clouds wilt in the beautiful south,
where the bitter olives are pulped to oil,
following the lore of our elders: the branches
beaten by hand – no commercial machinery
to strip the trees – , then picked through
till clean, sent to the mill, ground to a paste,
then the malaxation process slowly bonds
one drop to another drop, before the paste is put
under pressure to extract the juice,
leaving the pomace oil behind.
Children learn all that at school.

It happens every month, sometimes
more than once. The resulting oil is called virgin
because no one seems to know.
A child sticks to her homework,
her chair. The water is got rid of in a centrifuge
where descriptive words are spun at high speed
like when we do the fairground rides.
Done quickly seems to preserve the flavour
in makingmakingmaking oliveoil oliveoil oliveoil.
 
 
 
Published in Cry Wolf (Templar Poetry, 2012).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Daughter
Cristina Navazo-Eguía Newton
 
 
One becomes a menial chess piece
locked at an impasse outside school
in waiting for the daughter –a quince bloom
merging the beauty of continents and histories –
released with the hubbub queue of home time.

I am pointed at, granted the honour,
and she runs into me, into my square of expectation
bringing her day away from us,
inches taller than we left her, tired of good manners
and time tables. Mine now is this thrill
of wren song, this high voltage danger

I need to carry safe and see through
past the playground, the traffic,
the time I live in.
 
 
 
Published in Cry Wolf (Templar Poetry, 2012).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Not Forgotten
Adele Ward
 
 
So he’s dead then, Brian,
my father’s stepbrother.
Funny, I can’t imagine him silenced.

Always the outspoken one,
the joker in the pack
of children, abused
as only a parent or lover knows how.

I can’t picture him older,
turning to the church,
finding it locked and asking the vicar:
Where does God keep his keys?

As a child he climbed –
agile as a monkey –
up the back wall, high
away from his father’s fists,

then reached out his arms to balance –
a miniature foul-mouthed Messiah – yelling:
You’re a bloody bastard!

He would have to come down sometime;
but it was worth it
to see his siblings’ faces far below,
upturned, admiring,
bathing in his glory.
 
 
 
Published in Never-Never Land (Ward Wood Publishing, 2011).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ira Lightman
 
 
I’m learning from you
not to trust too soon,
to have the courage
to feel hurt.
When I’m interrupted
or neglected, me
I’ll ride along
with the other
story, forget
mine exists.
You resist
kidnap of attention,
turn to who you
become. Some
conversations they have
are bullshit, but
I wouldn’t
dare to let them know
I think so, as you show
you do, the
volume
up on your earpiece,
simply looking down.
 
 
 
Published in Mustard Tart As Lemon (Red Squirrel Press, 2011).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Have You Ever Tricked The Cat
Sally Clark
 
 
       into letting prey drop from its mouth
by pretending nonchalance
then making a grab
at something no more than fear and feathers?

And given the choice between the cat or you,
it throws itself at everything else
hoping that might give way,
and dives into holes too small to hide it.

And you want to say as you pick it up
‘I won’t hurt you,’
but when you speak you are all the predators
its mother and genes warned about,

and the stroke that reassures the tame
nearly stops its heart.
In the dark of your hand you believe it’s calmed
until you see that eye
looking back through your fingers.

That’s how it was.
My heart beating as if I ran
and his hand fluttering,
over my hair, my face, my neck, down
below my throat.

It was dark,
but I could not look at him.
 
 
 
Published in Solitaire anthology, 2007 (Templar Poetry).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 

© Virginia Erdie, ‘Giddy Gold’ from the collection ‘Not just an ICON …’

 
 
Precatio contra violo
Ivy Alvarez
 
 
Lord, give me strength to lie down with the lion, suffer his talons to pierce me, rip me to shreds. Let me endure it to the end. Let Thy bright needles stitch me together again, even as I fracture and crack. Let him not attack my dog — I cannot bear it. She whines and whines in the corner of the room. My cries distress her. I cannot help it. The old sofa enfolds my body. His mangy mane tears my neck. The drip of rank meat, his muzzle, his back-barbed tongue: red. He led me to the back of the car, Lord. He pressed me upstairs, a tied scapegoat. He put a pill into my fizzing coke. He held my throat. I wanted to live, Lord, so I reached inside myself and switched off. And the drug took hold. I slipped on the linings of coats. I slipped on the road. My poor, holy dog. I fought with myself. I opened my chest, disembowelled and spilled. The dark was a carcass a lion dragged in. He slipped in my blood. I could cauterise the dark. The needles were white-hot, though I held on to me shrinking infinitely to a line in the road. My world is burning up, Lord, and I with it.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Right Before the License Plate Game
Angela Readman
 
 
We drive all the way to the lake
in a green camper van. My sisters
play Happy Families up front.

I dream I walk into an ocean at night,
opening its arms like a giant white swan.

The smell of thermos coffee wakes me.
A tickle like feathers uncurling from my chest.
Mom’s friend standing near.
My tube top fallen down.

A look on his face that won’t let me catch it
before he yells, ‘Hey Sleeping Beauty’s top fell down.’
He laughs, ‘Look at her
covering her little poached eggs!’
 
 
 
Published in Strip (Salt Publishing, 2009).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Free Ride
Angela Readman
 
 
The sun falls into a movie backdrop.
I rub my blistered feet with polished fingers,
for the first time in a long time, wish for rain.

A sign says Welcome to Hollywood,
someone has added a question mark.
I walk long after the walk of fame sleeps.
Walk, Don’t Walk with heels in my hand.

When a cab pulls over, offers a free ride,
the driver’s gold tooth is sun before the storm.
His face takes on the neon that surrounds him;
strip club pink, convenience store blue.

Just a block and I am walking again,
after he says he doesn’t want nothing baby,
other than a golden shower.
 
 
 
Published in Strip (Salt Publishing, 2009).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.

 
 
 
 
 
Postcard to a Future Husband
Angela Readman
 
 
I read somewhere
about skin, the comfort of facts.

In seven years no one will have touched me.
Every inch he has handled
will have shed itself,
drifted into my pillow, fallen silent
into secret snowflakes
that land on your tongue.
 
 
 
Published in Strip (Salt Publishing, 2009).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.

Please note that submissions are closed.

The introduction to our protest can be read here.
 
Please refer to our list of International Resources for Rape Support here. 
 
 

 
 
Jane Lewty
 
 
Don’t know if it’s just the myth made, but sure there was stars
(just inner gazework perhaps)    Later got up, wiped off   as if we’d simply stopped in a layby on the way to somewhere  Across the park, yes blood, there was null sky
null sky with its contiguous hate, your hate  In years, heard something like I know my
redeemer bless this disquiet it’ll make you, or like to think heard

thank you
oh thank you      you’re an easy undeadlocked code when/if asked about.
 
 
 

 
 
 
How To Prevent Rape
Pamela Newham
 
 
She is ninety four.
Lives with her grandchild in a shack in Mmakau
but no one is home when he breaks the chains
that keep shut her front door.

Three hours pass before he leaves.
In Setswana she tells a reporter from TV news,
“A person who can do this
does not deserve to live.
He has destroyed everything.”

The police in North West Province say
elderly women are to be issued
with whistles and pepper spray.
 
 
 

 
 
 
Her Dress Said Yes
Cassandra Jane Parkin
 
 
So, there was this party
          With, you know, like
                    Beer
                    And coke
          And it was all kinds of a mess
She was with her girlfriends
          I was with the guys
                    And then –
          Her dress
                    Said yes.

She was all, like, sleeping
          I thought I’d wake her with a kiss
                    (Because the whole night was
          just like that, and besides
She’d been looking at me earlier
          and I thought I couldn’t miss).
                    And, okay, I’ll confess –

At first it was hard to guess
          Because I was messed up
                    and she was messed up
                              and then –
                    Her dress
          Said yes.

Her dress,
          That flirty little dirty little
                    scarlet velvet number
                              And her red shiny fuck-me shoes.

Oh jeez, her shoes
          Her shoes had the power, man
                    The power
          To choose.

Well yeah, maybe, man, I don’t know –
          Maybe there was a moment when she said no
                    But it could also have been oh
                              (I mean, I’m not boasting, but oh would have been, like,
                                        contextually appropriate
                              you know what I’m saying?)
          But how could anyone hear
                    Over my ahs and my oohs
                              And over the sound of those shoes?
                                        Those fuck-me shoes,
                              and that dress?

That dress!
          It was one big old screaming yes.

And yeah, looking at it with a fresh eye –
          Well sure, man, I’m not gonna lie,
                    There were three of us and all –
                              And we went to town
                    We had ourselves a ball
          But we’re not – I mean, I’m not –

                    I mean, look, I’m a nice guy, you know?

I don’t need to – I’m not –
          she should be grateful – and –
                    look, it was just –
          It was her dress!
                    Her dress!
                              Her dress!
                    It screamed YES!

Oh come on, man! How was I supposed to guess
          That you’d take the word of some
                    passed-out chick all in a mess
                              Over the clear testimony
                    Of a pair of shiny fuck-me shoes
          And a flirty little, skirty little,
                    low down and dirty little
                              red velvet dress?
 
 
 

 
 
 
the shoes she was raped in
Sarah Hesketh
 
 
two odd cuts of meat
on the counter top:

do you want them? he says
his fingers pushing through the plastic bag
ten soft teeth

oh yes, she says
signing for them then forcing
the burn of memory to her heel

what colour were they? red of course
that’s what everyone will suppose anyway
 
 
 

© Sally Clark, ‘Size Zero or How To Disappear’

 
 
It Takes a Few Days
Amy MacLennan
 
 
She shops. Blue bands
to tie her hair back.
Nail clippers, sweatshirts,
socks. Two bars of Ivory.

The housework. She scrubs
with dutch cleanser,
no gloves. The bathtub almost
radiant. Even the drain.

A guy strips the board
from her window, replaces
it with glass so pure
everything can be seen.

She double checks her spelling
in the emails she answers.
Shared, not shard. Care, not came.
She’s always had trouble with beautiful.
 
 
 

© mai

 
 
Recurring Nightmares
Sarah James
 
 
No! Nein! Non! Nie! No!
All the (wrong) places, times, scenes
where limbs are forced at angles,
fear rammed down a face, a throat,
any bleeding hole, any bleeding excuse.

No! Nein! Non! Nie! No!
All the (wrong) places, times, scenes
where it is your lover, daughter,
sister, mother, Nan whose voice
is nothing, nichts, rien, nic, nada.

No! Nein! Non! Nie! No!
All the (wrong) places, times, scenes
where blame is a short skirt, the jaunt
to her walk, that smile in her eyes
placed back in her hands, tattered.

No! Nein! Non! Nie! No!
All the (wrong) places, times, scenes
where we have to watch this violence
repeat again and again, limbs pinned,
voices killed in our throats –

NO! NEIN! NON! NIE! NO!
 
 
 

© Tom de Freston, ‘The Blue Lady and Him’

 
 
Going down there
Phillippa Yaa de Villiers
 
 
This is a letter scratched out by candlelight:
I leave it for all those who are also
confined, painfully pressed, split open.
Those who hold themselves tightly in their hands
so that they will not spill over
and drain away.
Fear eats hope like the night eats the day
leaving only crumbs of stars. Too far away
to be of any help.

I was raped at six, 11, at 13, at 17 and 19
I didn’t know I was violated because
where I came from
love was forced and
sometimes hurt.

The frail meat of humankind
can’t withstand extremes. We construct ourselves
around ourselves, making of our lives
a shelter.
When you build a house,
you place the window carefully;
when you grow out of a wound,
you see life through
a survivor’s eyes.
Rapes were my bread: I eat                              I understand.
Then later;            I understand,            I eat.
The marks on my house/body/shell are
the keloid memories of
African warriors: scars
deliberately inflicted, a sign of identity.
I read them like Braille.

When they found me I was filthy,
wild and mute. They asked me: what
happened? Compassion unlocked
the cage of memory, and words fell out of me
like the crumbs in Gretel’s dark forest,
pebbles of hope,
words
became light
showing me
how to get home.

I am healed now.
But I no longer
look the same.
 
 
 

© Cassandra Gordon-Harris, ‘Fragile Treasures’

 
I don’t know
Phillippa Yaa de Villiers
 
 
I don’t know
I’m not sure
I don’t know if
I was raped or not.
The uncle who held my hand and
wiped the ice-cream off
my black patent leather shoes
and then surprisingly stuck his tongue
between my teeth;
I’m not sure.
He bought me another ice-cream.

The time I got my new orange hot pants
with the yellow patent leather belt
and paraded in front him and he smiled and
told me I was beautiful and asked me when
I was turning twelve
and I laughed and said only after I’ve turned eleven.
Clamped in his caress, his eyes searching mine
asking Is that nice, baby, is that nice?
It was sore but he seemed to need me to say yes,
so I did, but it was sore, so I don’t know
if it was my fault or not
because I lied.
He always told me I was beautiful.

I’m not sure if I was raped or not
I wanted a massage, his hands are really strong
and he’s used to my body
he’s taken care of me before.
You can say one thing or 55 things:
I said thank you
because he was giving me so much.
I was really stuck with nowhere to live
he gave me more than I was asking for
I did really only want a place to sleep
and a massage
but I don’t know if I was raped because
that short word
is so much a piece of darkness
stuffed into a screaming mouth

I don’t know
I‘m not sure
He was my uncle
He gave me a massage
He was helping me out
 
 
 

© Malgorzata Lazarek

 
 
Undone
Kaddy Benyon
 
 
We had to run for the bus after confession,
where waiting for Mother’s silence
I’d made imaginary idols of saints, illuminated

by twenty votives I paid for with flickers
of prayer. We’d no time for my litany
of lies and spite and rage so the priest winked

and told me Next time. I reached for Mother’s
hand, already crammed with beads
clacking together: a metronome for OCD.

Her illness worshipped muttering; stations
of the cross mostly, but then anything
with a repeating pattern, lost in a hail of Marys.

She let me sit by the window, while, head
bowed she vowed to settle breaths above
the throb and grind of engine. Her hands knitted

together then apart, twisting and fidgeting inside
deliberate sleeves. She looked as odd
as the panting man in the soiled mac, uncurtaining

bushes when we stopped at lights. He grinned
up at me, presenting his puffy, purpley
grub. I covered up my eyes and whispered:

How soon is next time Mummy?                Mum?
 
 
 
Published in Milk Fever (Salt Publishing, 2012).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 

© Lorraine Adams

 
 
Bogeyman
Joanne Limburg
 
 
Out of eleven o’clock murk,
a voice:

Got the time, love?

Oh no.
I haven’t got the time.
Not for you.
I’ve been warned about you,

Mr Got the time?
Mr Got a light?
Mr Give us a smile
Mr Morning, beautiful sweetheart darlin’

Mr Measuring Eyes
Mr Wolf Whistle
Mr Honk Your Horn
Mr White Van Full of Hooting Apes

Mr Brainless Yob
Mr Sad Pissed-Up Fart
Mr Dirty Old Should Know Better
Mr Filthy Slimy Perv

Mr SEX FIEND
Mr RECENT SPATE OF ATTACKS
Mr MY FIVE HOUR ORDEAL
Mr LEFT ME FOR DEAD

Mr Don’t Cross the Park Alone
Mr Keep The Curtains Closed
Mr Never Sit Like That
Mr Your Knickers Are Showing Through

Mr Be Sensible, Mr Be Quiet
Mr Something To Cry About
Mr Smack You And Send You To Bed
Mr Chopper To Chop Off Your Head

Mr Hangman
Mr Judge
Mr Jailer
Mr Fear.
 
 
 
Published in Femenismo (Bloodaxe Books, 2000).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 

© René Bohnen

 
The Bicycle
Katrina Naomi
 
 
I was OK     nothing had happened
nothing bad had happened
I couldn’t get up from the bench
couldn’t do up my dungarees
It was cold     it was night
The man had gone     and that was good
I was OK     I could sit up
peel myself from the bench’s slats
which had pressed deep inside
It could have been worse
I was shaking     it was night
The bicycle was too heavy
My dungarees kept slipping
buttons were missing
I had to get home
It was so hard to walk
My head hurt     kept punching inside
my teeth couldn’t stop talking
It could have been worse
My jaw hurt and my breasts were raw
I couldn’t pick up the bicycle     its spinning wheel
couldn’t walk with the bicycle
I had to get home     to wash
sleep     throw these clothes away
I was shaking     I was cold
My dungarees wouldn’t do up
I would be alright     it was just
this bicycle     I needed
 
 
 
Published in Magma.
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 

 
 
 
Hippocratic Oath
Christine Swint
 
 
Normal is a setting on a dryer, he said,
and should-hood is shit-hood, remember that.
Listen, you’re living in your head,

all filled up with that tripe you’ve read
about men in frock coats and silk cravats.
Normal is a setting on a dryer, he said.

Don’t take no for an answer in bed—
learn how to give and take a love pat.
You know, you’re living in your head.

Wear a dress that can raise the dead
the next time you come for our chat.
Normal is a setting on a dryer, he said,

so do what you want. Morality’s dead.
Look in the mirror. You’re getting fat.
If you’re not living in your head,

baby, my name isn’t Dr. W. Dubled.
Come sit next to Papa—this is where it’s at.
Normal is a setting on a dryer, he said.
Listen, you’re living in your head.
 
 
 

© Virginia Erdie, ‘Dora Exploited’ from ‘Not just an ICON …’

 
 
You Didn’t Rape Me
Michelle Gallen
 
 
properly. Afterwards I
stalked the streets wearing
short skirts, walked home down
alleys in lacey, low-cut tops,
and talked to strangers, drunk, alone.
Because you didn’t rape me,
not properly.

There was no police, no doctor,
no court case. No sterile swabs,
scraped samples or photographed bruises.
No counsellor. No compensation.
Because you didn’t rape me,
not properly.

There was no gun, no knife,
no broken bottle. No smashed bones,
torn skin or ripped, muddied clothes.
No bloodied face. No blackened eyes.
Because you didn’t rape me,
not properly.

There was only your slim fingers
on my wet mouth, your strong
brown arm on my trapped arms.
Your whispered yes Yes YES
to my stifled no No NO.
My muffled, swollen lips.

No. I agree.
You didn’t rape me.
Not properly.
 
 
 
Published in Mslexia.
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 

© Ingrid Andersen

 
 
Object lesson
Ingrid Andersen
 
 
 
Black

Beside the laptop with the incomplete assignment,
a framed picture of her, smiling amongst friends
– all in black gowns – at the Residence Ball.
From this angle, she is not visible
behind the glass.

The others are below in the quad
on their way to class;
her hand is too heavy to wave.
They wouldn’t see her in here anyway.
 
 
 
Red

In her dustbin, still
the red plastic cup from punch
he brought to her room
after the Ball.

Before his crushing weight, the struggle, the choking, the tearing pain.

Before the silence.
 
 
 
White

They all know.

They also know she knows what happened
to the last girl who reported him:
slut-shamed, shunned, she
transferred out of College.

Football heroes don’t rape.

Her white sundress a flag, she mingles.
 
 
 

© Ingrid Andersen

 
 
Scarlet under the Moon
Maureen Jivani
 
 
As if such an act
constituted love:

(the hateful self
being the only thing
that stood
between dignity
and damage
in the deepening woods)

to present, an apology
of cherry-red gloves.

© Theresa DiMenno

 
 
4.
 
Sarah Crewe
 
 
amity= friendship

a flag happy population    like dagenham on sea only

less grey    more    great white    equal    display of

misplaced patriotism    equal    whitewash/no

talk of iraq on the heathway/no

vietnam chat on the gangway

this is a seasonal wealth complex

so let me say chrissie wasn’t so much attacked

as swimming with bad intent&

wearing a corpse flower costume&

waving her arms lasciviously&

shouldn’t have been out alone&

barefoot&you say accident they say uh, what?

but you say hunted& they say riot&

summer parade=uprising
 
 
 
From sea witch.
 
 
 

© Tom de Freston, ‘Swimmer’

 
 
Starfish Hands
Caroline Carver
 
 
Bermuda yes          islands of dreams
so many islands wrapped in glittering sea
like shining silver inside sweet papers

crinkled and thrown away
– put them in the cave
where no one will find them – says the man

she hates him already       with his
yellow skin and pursing sun-pricked mouth
he smells like long-dead starfish

Above them on the rocks is an iguana
Why did her mother leave her? she is
terrified of iguanas   – big and scaly like a dragon –

– a monster who eats little girls –
says the playful man holding
her tight and speaking in a tingly
sea-urchin voice

He carries her into the sea saying its safer there
but it’s

hot as if it fell out of a witch’s
cauldron and she wants her mother
nowrightnow rightnowrightnow and she goes
so far away everything is small like the tipsting of a mosquito
comes so close it’s three hundred and sixtyfive
times bigger than all the islands beaded together and
the watching monster grows big as a

giant pushing himself up and down on his
front legs and breathing his throat out and in
while the world turns green and

blue the world turns yellow and red every
finger and mouth in the world is full of splashing
and salt homenowrightnowrightnowrightnow

Monstrous starfish hands
monstrous starfish mouths   c r e e p     s l o w l y

over her slow worm face       creep
under her spiny
back    creep

into her soft space
nowrightnowrightnowrightnow  the world turns soft and black
until
          with lanterns swinging like owls’ eyes

night searchers find her naked cold
and gasping       a stranded close-hooked
fish amongst an unforgiveness of rocks
 
 
 
Published in Bone-Fishing (Peterloo Press, 2006).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 

© Theresa DiMenno

 
 
To Hear a Mermaid Sing
Jacqueline Saphra
 
 
Once I nearly drowned and fell in love all in a day.
A goddess saved me from the sea.
Crazed with thirst, horny as hell,
I thought I saw a mermaid and heard her sing.
Her hair made patterns like the waves.
We lay together, panting on a bed of sand.
I’ve always liked a bed of sand,
a girl who asks for it: whoah lads, my lucky day.

There was magic in the waves.
She swayed in rhythm with the sea.
Ripe, crimson lips opened: she began to sing.
Perhaps I’d died and gone to heaven although hell
is more my scene. And what I got was hell.
True, nothing between us but the sand,
but think about it. Mermaid. Tail. All she could do was sing.
She sang all fucking day.
I was off my head man, rocking with the sea.

At nightfall, hypnotised, I watched her disappear into the waves
and I was gutted. For weeks I scanned those waves,
stood on the shore waiting: it was hell.
I promised I’d change, stop drinking. I slept unshaven by the sea
until one morning dark waters washed her up onto the sand.

I promised I’d marry her that very day
if only she’d sing, if only she’d sing.
Made a fool of me. It wasn’t her. She couldn’t sing.
Tailless, tongueless, witless slut of the waves.
Not so innocent and pure. Proved it that day.
Got pissed. Had her there and then. Fucking hell.
Called the lads in. Took turns. She was salt and sand.
Fed her vodka. Dunked her in the sea.
I wanted her to drown: she swallowed half the sea.
Rising from the shallows time after time she tried to sing.
No sound but gurgle, spit and splutter – brine and sand.

I walked away but she followed, back turned to the waves
lurching after me towards her new hell.
Alright, I said, come home. Let’s give it one more day.

Sometimes when I’m pissed, I like to watch the sea.
Across the waves
some nights I think I hear a mermaid sing:
my private hell.
Face down, breathing wet sand, I dream of her till day.
 
 
 

© Theresa DiMenno

 
 
Tea and Sea
Kiran Millwood Hargrave
 
 
When he entered me, I emptied myself
and dreamed of tea –
jasmine, coy on my tongue,
and fresh mint, sweetened in Jordan:
climbing the misted hills with my brother,
the mother-of-pearl ring bought at the top
by my father and my mother; my mother
who likes her tea English, and weak
as early morning light. My mother,
cupping sunshine in her palms.

I found the sea shelled in his hand
at my throat the thumb salty, bitter
in my mouth, spirited from coasts
ghosting through: the sun dipping
as we drove to San Francisco,
wired by discovery and the moon
beside us, sharpened in its wane
to a blade cradled at my neck.
The submergence into shocking cold
tides at Wells, tides at Druidstone, tides.

This girl
she is washing away:
expelled as the piss down
her inner thighs. I will find her,
years later, crouched under an
unmentionable weight; changed.
 
 
 
Published in Splitfish (Gatehouse Press, 2013).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 

© Theresa DiMenno

 
 
Security Blanket
Caitlin Clarke
 
 
You, frolicking like wild horses we saw
at the villa in Orvieto,
grazing in their kingdom of spiky grass,
hollering and playing in the river,
splashing about like you did, in your wellies,
specks of gold and silver dancing through their thick auburn manes
performing your odyssey to a green amphitheater,
with innocence draped over your shoulders.

I see you in Cardiff, on the Gaza strip
a medley of latex, iron pyrite, and big bouncing tits,
I see your face among them all,
plastered against the bodies of whores, and pimps,
of the Rottweilers chained to telephone poles,
snarling through their buttery teeth,
clawing at nothing in particular,
and the scarlet faced men who scurry like rats,
opening and closing cast-iron doors;
fading into black.

Beyond the mountains of ivory powder,
and the piles of broken glass,
I see you, shaking
your skin turned to rubber,
as limp and sullen as that bird we saw,
in the bush outside Bungendoor,
clinging on to the darkness,
depleting into the onyx earth.

I see you at Hope House
among a collage of absent faces;
do you remember how your legs shook,
when he parted them,
when you sunk your body into the lumpy grey foam
and begged it to swallow you?
in the mirror, our eyes meet
patchwork blue, green, brown
                                          and crimson
dripping down your legs like rain
on a pipe, evaporating
like the steam off the top of that mountain
we saw, when we chased shadows
as if they were dragons in the sky.

I see you there, aged seventeen,
searching through the long grass,
newly wet with mildew,
for some kind of prophecy.
I see you there, in the water,
among the schools of fish,
hunting with the seagulls,
and floating all the way back home.

Mosaic mermaids swim through the derelict rust,
their platinum tails capturing light, competing
with other contestants;
the old man who nurtures squirrels in the graveyard,
whose sickly skin is blotched with shades of violet and cherry red
who cowers from children, and crumbles, slowly,
into the amber earth.
The sandstone woman, imprinted with hues of you.
In Stokes Croft, I see her, in all her wretched glory,
her leathery skin tightly wrapped in matte black plastic,
hips bulging, gasping for a breath of fresh air,
like the glistening rocks we saw at Church Bay,
that appear only when the tide is out,
apparitions in the sand.

I see you there, in the water.
Flecks of luminous golden light striking the sea,
and from it you rise, in all your saline splendor,
only to crash against the marble and tremble,
retreating to the deep dark blue.
 
 
 

© Theresa DiMenno

 
 
A kind of rescue
Afric McGlinchey
 
 
Can’t inhale any more
of his boulder-sized words,
droops, like a fox’s tail caught
in a shower of rain.
His rage has turned her upside down,
bringing out the other one,
who launches

like a whale leaping from the ocean,
while she disappears
into nothingness.
Later, comes to, to find herself
carried in a cradle of human arms,
panic hitting her in the throat,
bruises blooming;

tries to cover them, looks up
to see a corridor
of huge trees peering down,
green faces leaning.
Across the sky, a white arc
wakes the beginning of memory…
then a mighty uprush, burning;

his smiling mask,
finger beckoning
casually, as though talking
of the weather, or moving house,
or furniture, yet
eyes fixed as poignantly
as a bridegroom waiting for his lover.

Arms release her at the door,
and she ducks behind it,
fragments of a hide-and-seek self
flicking into place
like a coin into a slot.
On the camber of her hips, evidence
of thumbprints.
 
 
 

© Sally Clark

 
 
Exposed
Agnes Marton
 
 
Those forests can be only walked naked,
on the soft, at parts bebarked paws
of the once-tamed-but-escaped,
of the fairly-wild-still.

I shush along the trees you sculpted for me,
embarrassed by your shiny touch
on the leaves which unfold
curved trajectories to the Deepest.

The Dreamiest Alone has never scared me.
I keep talking to you as if you were
still whiskassing me until I purred.

Watching me, bastard, huh? Don’t you ever stop
feasting your eyes? And what’s next?
You make me jump through hoops of
sunset-flames mirrored on lakes
and when exhausted you stroke me
while I fall asleep?

I square up to you, looking straight back
to your fucking fingers,
I can bite and hiss until you
keep out of my sight.
Pardon my French, I’m supposed to speak like a lady
but it’s gone, I’ve unalterably changed.

Vulnerable at core but keep going.
The more I scream, the more silence I gain.
The more I swear at you, I become the more sacred.
I’m your ex-creature. Goddess of Survival.
 
 
 

© Cassandra Gordon-Harris, ‘Three Moon Lullaby’

 
 
A Silver Tabby called Tiger
Emma Lee
 
(from a photo accompanying Emma Humphreys’ obituary)
 
 
Emma called you Tiger:
a big name for a little cat.

Her case changed the definition of provocation
to include accumulated violence.

You blink away from the sunlight:
outside is bright with trial and error.

She had blinked in the prison exit’s sunlight,
the brightness of her own flat.

Let’s count your tabby stripes.
Say fifteen for kittenhood.

At fifteen she ran away
to Nottingham’s inner city streets.

Let your sandpaper tongue wash
your dull metal-grey fur.

She used a knife on the pimp
about to rape her again.

Let’s count two more stripes
as you stretch onto your long spine.

She was sentenced to seven years,
but served ten.

You’ve no problem with appetite.
Over three years you watched her diminish.

Count thirty stripes of your silver.
 
 
 

© Naomi Woddis

 
 
Asking For It
Emmy Summers
 
 
I’m all dressed up in my best
I dare not venture past the threshold
the black-out curtains twitching
in case fish between the plains of coral
invoke the prey-drive
it is their fault for being born fish
and how in turn if I should be found
my knickers hitched up
blood stains like the first time
it will be my fault
for daring think it was mine to keep
when it was taken
with all the grace of an Attenborough documentary
if the bird remains in the cage          (safe)
we are saving them from themselves
the black-out curtains fall and twitch
playing dead for this graceless audience
foetal under the duvet
 
 
 

© Virginia Erdie, ‘Psychedelic Jane’ from ‘Not just an ICON …’
36″ x 36″ on wood, with cardboard, molding paste and resin

 
 
The Sex Life of Slugs
Valerie Laws
 
 
Slugs make a civilised business of mating.
Each one both male and female,
They come together side by side.
A fat white rope joins them,
An umbilicus through which
They exchange genetic material.
Both lay eggs, a pearly caviar.

Slugs do not have, take, or possess:
They build bridges between two equals,
Share their twin-sexed selves.

If only we could share so easily
The male and female in us with our lovers.
The penetrating and the child-bearing
Keep pulling us apart.

Meanwhile, after dark, slugs stroll
The pavements, fearless of rape.
 
 
 
Published in joint collection For Crying Out Loud (Iron Press).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Cymbidium
Adele Ward
 
 
That was the first time I saw orchids.

A neighbour called over the hedge
though he didn’t like children.
Being twelve I obeyed,
even if his mouth was too
old man voluptuous.
Glaucous eyes behind
thick lenses caught and held me captive.

I followed
into a dark back room
where his wife sat in the corner,
so still she might have been dead,
then stepped around

                    his special door
into the warm extension.
The walls were glazed –
Light filtered wetly
through overlapping fronds.
Flowers perched like fine curled
slices of moist raw veal.

He showed me his pride: cymbidium orchids –

See how they grip the climbers:
they live on trees,
sucking up water and leaf litter
as it drips down the bark.

Epiphytic, he called them.
Parasites, I thought.

Hold out your hands.

He sliced off an orchid head –
planted it, corpse cool,
in my upturned palms.
I held it: stemless, wounded,
Nothing but a gaping mouth –
amputated, silent.

Then he took a hooked knife,
cut away clinging roots
and tore through, as if
parting curtains.

Look. That’s where I watch you play.

From his hide I peered
into my own clearing: a square of lawn –
sunlight painful after the shade.
My own discarded tennis racket waiting.
 
 
 
Published in Never-Never Land (Ward Wood Publishing, 2011).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Indian Rose
Sharon Black

               All the flowers of all the tomorrows
               are in the seeds of today – Indian Proverb
 
 
This is no romantic gesture:
a weal of pink, bruised to violet
at the petals’ ragged edges –
fuchsia and mauve flooding the frame,
the flower’s heart
leaking
down the canvas.

Six men on a bus
pull a student from her seat
and rape her, beat her,
dump her body –

a nine-year-old is married
to her uncle to preserve
family ties and a dowry
of ten china bowls –

another hides
a notebook in her mattress,
forced to cook and mend
while her brothers go to school.

It’s just a painting –
you can’t smell its fragrance, hear it
confiding to the breeze
                    how soil too blooms
each time five sepals open like a hand,
petals unfurling, pistil rising proud
and fiery as the sun.
 
 
 

© Naomi Woddis

 
 
That Room
Becky Cherriman
 
 
His guitar stood in the corner, upright like a threat.
There were beanbags to slouch on,
an empty space where the video used to be
and a place on the bookshelf
for the tank of tadpoles
my mum brought home from school each year.
During the holidays we would watch
as some of them teetered
out of their tails and into legs.
Not all of them made it.

The walls of that room were papered in woodchip
the colour of an alcoholic’s piss, and peeling.
When he left, we bought some Trisodium,
sprayed it from ceiling to floor
to get the tobacco stains out.
Brown rivuleted down onto the carpet
like the tadpoles that slid
off the shelf and into my bra and knickers
one night when Mum was out.
There were some stains that wouldn’t shift.
 
 
 
Published in Versions of the North: Contemporary Yorkshire Poetry, ed. Ian Parks
(Five Leaves Publications, 2013).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 
 
 
 
My Paisley Quilt
Becky Cherriman
 
 
There are worse rapes than this.

He did not threaten my family
or beat me with his fists;
he simply prised open my thighs,
shut his eyes to my tears.

There are worse rapes than this.

He did not bind me with Gaffa tape
or hold a knife to my throat;
he simply ignored me when I said no,
every time I said no.

There are worse rapes than this

in the comfort of my own bed
under my favourite Paisley quilt
by the man I love.
Loved.

There are worse rapes than this.

The introduction to our protest can be read here.
 
Please refer to our list of International Resources for Rape Support here. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

© Naomi Woddis

 
 
Landmarks
Jane Commane
 
 
Our geographies are different,
Pierced by landmarks like this;
Secluded lanes, alleyways, parks,
emptying train carriages, taxi cabs,
stairwells, public toilets, almost all
open spaces when unaccompanied.
 
Then, those other landscapes of threat;
working late alone, short-cuts home,
the party where the first drink swipes
your running feet from under you,
the stranger or the friend you trusted.
 
It can happen almost anywhere.
And too often, it does.
We fold up this tattooed map of threats,
carry it everywhere we go.
 
 
 
 
 
Boot Carnage
Meg Tuite
 
 
Alone in my car at a stoplight.
Owl Liquor store, the only beacon on an otherwise four-way corner
of tangled vacant ghosts between sky and bone.

Drivers stare through each other from the safety
of windshields
when the girl crosses the street.
Air is still. July transfixed in swelter.

The girl’s body wires on a decline
no wind outside her.
A mini-skirt bares bruises,
spindly legs pack into combat boots.
Black cracked magnificence.
Boots haunt and bleed many orbits.

She sneers at cars lined up on either side,
spits at windshields.
Thrusts her head back,
shoots white spitballs into the air between us,
one after another, as if they were fists.

Somewhere defiance
stomps its kickass boots
smacking cement
a fear I decipher,
a compass point.

Alone on a street in Uptown.
4 AM and truancy is palpable.
Men line up, lean against buildings,
drip leer-bullets like semen.
A masturbation on every strung out crack face.
They click their tongues
hoot at my scrawny limbs,
hone into my tremoring head
through blood-clot eyes.

I just left the hospital.
A girl has been raped.
I held her hand for hours while she shook
through legs in stirrups, detectives
whose eyes were cast on her breasts
as though they were answering the questions.

When I get back on the street
those rabid men don’t know these boots
are loaded with dynamite
could take out the entire block.

Cement crushes beneath me,
I grind through each one
of their crotch-grabbing threats.

and with every step they diminish,
as though behind a windshield,
I watch them disappear
in my rearview mirror.
 
 
 

© Wayne Holloway-Smith

 
 
The Apple
Rethabile Masilo
 
 
When young summer rains
have washed our sheets
by the river, hung them in the wind
to dry, and yanked them tight
over the edges again, then swept them flat
with an outstretched hand—that’s when
I like to get it on with you; yet even sex
has somehow left us wanting,
so that the orchard appears to fruit
how pillage does to love. They are people
of aggression, my Lord, who spend
their time reaping the undergrowth
as if Eve had never offered her apple
openly to Adam first, inviting his snake
to partake of her harvest, with this blessing—
this apple we shall share at love’s meetings.
Objection, your Honour! (Objection overruled!)
In Eden, everywhere between limbs is fruit
watered with good water. Red ones
the size of Mecca, small ones with a small
tang, bigger ones, of the loins
and of the loom, made from stamen and pistil,
mangoes with the fever for a mouth
just hanging out at the pool in the sun.
There is a buffet in the afternoon
where the horn of plenty has spilled.
And when the mission bell rings
and we head to church ironed-out
and starched like sheets, our clothes
are a tropical basket of fruit, some of it
ripe enough to burst at a touch
into tears that may not be of joy,
young fruit with no particular root
to look to but the earth beneath us.
Truth is, without the core’s consent
nothing should ever take place. Peach
or apricot or the wild berries that grow
behind the village spring, who will, when
the time comes, take the message of this day
into consideration? When I walked
out of Pioneer Mall in Maseru last night
a man lifted a sign at me, held it at the flow
of after-dinner traffic: fuck rape, it said
in cursive and deliberate characters.
 
 
 

© Amy Key

 
 
The day after
Pippa Little
 
 
I am invisible.
Nobody would know, nobody will know,
my friend says. She runs her hand down
over my head, says
I am clean now.

What used to be my voice
but haywire,
a wolf clawing at a door,
tells her no,
red sobs erupting through my skin.
 
 
 

© Malgorzata Lazarek

 
 
After the Attack
Carrie Etter
 
 
I hinge one of my ribs
to either side of the doorway.
I stir my father’s muscles into mortar.
I carry my mother’s eyes in my palm
to set in stone above the entrance.

I am building a house for Joanna, my youngest sister,
designed to protect her.
I regret its late construction—
I had thought, She is only thirteen,
believing she had a few more years of safety.

I walk to the nearest hill and look back.
There is no house, there is no sanctuary.
There are bricks I want to heft.
There is a sharpened pole
where I want to place his head.
 
 
 
Published in The Beloit Poetry Journal.
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 
 
 
 
blue rubber mat
Mathew Staunton
 
 
past a staff room
and the office
of the principal

a boy drags
a blue rubber mat

out into the playground
where St Joseph
guards the cars

a boy drags
a blue rubber mat

through the gaping entranceway
and up two flights
of stairs

a boy drags
a blue rubber mat

past his teachers
and another open
staff room door

a boy drags
a blue rubber mat

and once the classroom door is closed
he lays the place he will be raped
upon the floor
 
 
 

© Cassandra Gordon-Harris, ‘Yellow Leaves’
Oil painting

 
 
Wallpaper
Terry Ann Thaxton
 
 
Purple hills and green houses run
together in the wallpaper around my room. My daddy
runs his hands down, gliding over the cut

edges where they join with paste. The paste holds
down my tongue. Do you like it? I swallow so daddy’s
princess can exist. Stare over hills into darkness
beyond green houses
where people live happily
where purple hills are not bruises
where little girls laugh. No daddy

loves his princess more; he buys wallpaper. Mommy
sees the edges peel, superglues them down so no one
sees. It’s silly to have wallpaper like that, why
did you ask for it anyway? I did not
ask for it—I drop my head, close my eyes. Inside
my head crowds of people run away
with me to the other side of the room and wait
in the corner

under the window, ready to throw
our weightless bodies out in to the purple hills,
ready to stay away for a long time—all night
if we have to. Princess will know when it’s time
to return. When daddy leaves her

alone again. When he tells her to forget.
It’s important to be quiet. Do you like it?
nodaddynodaddyidont
 
 
 
Published in Getaway Girl (Salt Publishing, 2011).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 

© Josephine Corcoran

 
 
Unconvincing (underlined)
Josephine Corcoran
 
 
My mother didn’t die when I was twelve
Someone’s husband never said
We can give her a home
I never found myself alone with him
Inside my bed
My head
Was always full of fancy
I would have failed regardless
Whatever did, or didn’t, happen
The day before the test
 
 
 
 
 
 
Memory Grill
Paul Hawkins
 
 
The noise I hear when bacon fries is the hard pop and scratch of vinyl; Elvis or Jagger jumping out of the speakers into my ears, I recall the clumsy moon-steps of Neil Armstrong in zero gravity, Mohammed Ali having no quarrel with them VC; the taste of a digestive biscuit dunked in tea. But then there was no ‘Love Me Tender’ in the room lit by that black & white TV, just your insisting hips thrusting and you forcing yourself into me.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Coat
Martin Figura
 
 
Give me your tobacco coat
and black hat, father. Sink
into the cracked leather chair.

Let’s have a good look at you:
your white shins and loose teeth,
your monkish bald patch.

Let’s go through the photographs,
those ridiculous fictions
stuck down in albums.

Who’s this and this, I don’t
remember them. Your hands
seem a little shaky old man,

be careful with your tea. Tell me
the truth this time. We can take it
to the scrubby end of the garden,

not mind the sodden leaves,
look out across the stubbled field
to the roosting rooks.
 
 
 

© Naomi Woddis

 
 
Evil Eye
Camellia Ann Cressey
 
 
To her, the oblong rubber was magical.
A little rub, and all her multiplication errors
and spelling mistakes would disappear.
She harvested the flimsy rubber shavings
in her blouse pocket to make pretend
snow for her dolls at home. Each day
she went to the girls’ toilets and rinsed
her rubber in cold water to wipe away
granite smears and grubby fingerprints.
In Maths, a pupil stabbed her rubber
with a pencil, the lead breaking
and wedging deep inside. She cried
until the teacher observed that the prick
looked like an eye. She skipped home,
excited to give her Barbies a snowy surprise.

She was surprised to find the kitchen door open
and even more surprised to see Daddy
who’d been away for ages, pulling
his jeans up over his bare bottom
and Mummy on the floor with her eyes closed,
blood dribbling from her mouth.
She licked her rubber and scrubbed it frantically
across her forehead, but the image wouldn’t rub away.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Best Eaten Cold
Valerie Morton
 
 
Behind me at the freezer section,
his hands round my waist tightening

as he whispers “We’ve missed you –
it’s been so long”. He doesn’t know

I know what she spilled onto my lap
one day after school. My best friend’s

husband – her best friend’s father.
At first it was simple – report him, kill him,

smash his face in – but it would be her word
against his and he hadn’t gone “all the way”.

This is it –

in a flash I bring up the frozen peas,
crash the solid pack against his cheek,

watch the weals rise, red and angry –
that’s for my daughter.
 
 
 

Vanessa Daou © Image by Tyann Sells

 
 
Save Yourself
Vanessa Daou
 
 
Running away from things that don’t hypnotize you
Spinning in circles when you cry
Something inside you always turns against yourself
While everyone out there knows how to be the hero

Can’t you save yourself just like everybody else?

Forever’s a state of mind you like to put yourself in
So you go to the movies to believe in things again
You make a religion reading comic strips
So you’ll learn how to die with a smile

Can’t you save yourself just like everybody else?
 
 
 
Lyrics from the album Joe Sent Me © Daou Records
Reproduced with the author’s permission.

The introduction to our protest can be read here.
 
Please refer to our list of International Resources for Rape Support here.
  
  
 

Emmy Verschoor, ‘Feeling small in a chaotic world’
Acrylic on canvas 90cm x 90cm

 
 
Who
Clare Best
 
 
I am the page ripped from the book
missing and unknown

I am a key without a lock
a peach inside a stone

I am the child running the track
and the sharp right turn

I am quick to learn how not to speak
I am flame that will not burn
 
 
 
Published in Excisions (Waterloo Press, 2011).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 

© Theresa DiMenno

 
 
Dryad
Zoë Brigley
 
 
In the forest, golden light falls on pocked wood, speckled branches and damp moss.
How bodies are like that too: stretched by pain, inked and marred by indelible scars.
 
               *          *          *
 
That tree in the town where she used to live,
not far from a ruined castle, and the moat
mouthing abandoned shopping trolleys.
How she stood under the sycamore,
seedy bungalows grown up around it.
How she lived in the century-old tree
and knew the wind blow through her.
The shivering of three-fingered leaves
like a hundred jangling pains.
The growing began with the first rape:
that hurt peculiar to violation by a lover;
the particular knowledge employed
for pain or pleasure. She grasped herself
hardening: a woman in thin, smooth bark.
Wound in sopped sheets, she closed again
so nothing would enter, not ever.
 
               *          *          *
 
He is behind her now. He bites,
snatches away. He embraces her face
and fists. The incline of her dress fluttering,
blown back; branches pressed by his hands.
 
She thinks of the others: Syrinx – the reed-woman,
transformed into a mournful sound;
Pitys turned to pine, rocked by the North Wind;
and Daphne who was at least a sweet laurel.
 
We are all who have pleased too well.
“Don’t hurt me.” The bark of a prayer.
He almost has her. Now he’s sure that she’s caught.
The gale blows through her face, her tumbling hair.
 
Shadows of will trip in the breeze. Nothing to be held but a hand of leaves.
 
               *          *          *
 
How trees are like that: stretched by pain, inked and marred by indelible scars.
On a lover’s bed or deserted street, she remains a woman in smooth, thin bark.
 
 
 
 
 
 
A Wasps’ Nest
Pascale Petit
 
 
“Only weak people see a therapist” he repeats.
And to stop myself from walking out

I send the warrior inside me
to search for a wasps’ nest.

I’m answering back now, asking him if
there was anything he would have changed.

He’s told me his mother was a bitch
and what the priests did in the boarding-school,

and I know that he punished my mother.
But he’s run out of breath,

he’s spitting in his jar.
A few wasps zoom into the air.

Then I see it – big as a head
and what I have to do is

hit the wasps’ nest hard.
And keep on hitting it with my fist.

Inside there’s a fat queen laying more stingers.
She’s at the centre of the combs.

Out fly her workers, diving into my hair,
stabbing my face.

I hit harder. My fist swells.
Somewhere in the nest there’s the room

where the queen will eat her daughters
when they challenge her,

there’s the buzzing sound
Father hears when he can’t breathe.

The sound I hear when I want to leave
and never come back. Not as a weakling.

I’m smashing the cell where Father lives.
The punching only stops when I pass out.
 
 
 
Published in The Zoo Father (Seren, 2001).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 

© Malgorzata Lazarek

 
 
The D.A. Has Polished Nails
Kirsten Dierking
 
 
I.
 
Tap, tap, tap,
her fingers on

that handsome desk,
diplomas dusted,

Too bad, she says,
you didn’t manage

a look at his face.
You’re not giving me

much to work with
you know.
 
 
II.

Fingers tapping.
What color was he?

The crackling orange
of fire licking the edge

of the bedclothes.
The scarlet of rages,

fevers and scratches.
The silver of knives.

The brassy bad luck
of lightning strikes,

the grizzled rumble
of lingering thunder

long after it’s over.
The color of bruises

or cross-stitched scars
or a hemorrhaged eye.
 
 
III.

Tap. Tap. Tap.
You’re not giving me

much to work with
you know.
 
 
IV.

No one’s been scraping
under her nails for

a skin sample.
 
 
 
Published in One Red Eye (Holy Cow! Press, 2001).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Fish
Amali Rodrigo
 
Community Panchayal directs rape accused to marry victim
– Press Trust of India, November 2004
 
 
She can remove her bra and panties
beneath the tent of a salwar kameez without
an inch of skin made visible.

She lowers her gaze in the presence of strangers
reads their feet like palms; cracked, pampered,
shod or barefoot.

She wants a husband whose feet
are not split at the heel like her father’s
or caked in mud like her brother’s.

  
1 Month Later:

Her husband-to-be has feet smooth
as de-scaled fish. The astrologer says
her first born will be ‘famous’
I think they mishear ‘miracle’.

Her family hears about a girl
who hanged herself by a dupatta and hides
all of hers. She drinks gallons of milk,
the way the Shiva Lingum is cleansed
at temples. Her bridal sari is red.

The priest blesses them with a coconut, scatters
rice for fertility – he wasn’t to know I am hiding
in the darkness inside her. She thinks his feet
are like newspaper parcels of fish,
faces sticking out, nails like flat fish eyes.

He takes her home with him that night.
His fish-feet mount hers.
I’m only a few cells along, but I know
something isn’t right

from the way she stares at his feet.
 
 
3 Months:

She leaves all his shoes in the sun
to rid them of their fish and cabbage smell.
She eats a bag of figs, then pistachios,
then walnuts and retches with such force

that I’m afraid
of being wrenched free of her.

Her mother comes to take her back home.
It doesn’t last long because all day her father
mutters like a prayer –
what will the neighbours think.

Before she leaves she sneaks her old dupattas
from the linen cupboard in with her clothes.
No one sees what she takes away with her.

I swim in pumice when she scrubs her feet.
In this house, the smell of fish doesn’t go away.

Big Fish Little Fish she murmurs to herself as she scrubs.
 
 
5 Months:

She turns sixteen today.
I don’t hear voices. Maybe he is mute.
I have not seen his face, but I would

know his feet anywhere.
 
 
7 Months:

I give myself vertigo looking at feet
upside down. I sleep curled
the way she does. We are like seahorses.

I give myself vertigo again doing hand-stands
to see the sky

when she cries outside in mangosteen-coloured nights,
we hang like bats from the sky.

His little toes are always turned sideways
for the weight of him.
The big toe has wiry whiskers on the knuckle,
like cat-fish.

The sound of fish breathing. Wet sound of fish kissing.
 
 
3 Days before My Birth:

My mother can’t sleep because I space-walk
inside her. She says:
The stench is unbearable and gets out of bed
(he is asleep).

She returns with the axe set apart
for cracking coconuts.

I must bury the dead fish she says,
looking at his feet.
I must bury the dead fish.

I am almost a miracle.
 
 
 
Notes:
 
Salwar kameez – a traditional dress in India with a flowing tunic and loose pyjama like trousers.
 
Dupatta – a long multipurpose scarf that accompanies traditional dress and is a symbol of modesty.
 
Shiva Lingum – is a phallic representation of the major Hindu deity Shiva.
 
 
 
Published in Poetry London.
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 

© Theresa DiMenno

 
 
Anene
Malika Ndlovu
 
 
Daughter Anene, sunflower of Bredasdorp
At least 9 times in one morning I have heard your name
Shuddered at the details, the desecration of your body
Your temple violated by your brothers, our deranged sons
1 by 1 they witnessed, goaded, pinned and groaned
Used their hardened hands for inhumane purpose
Lost themselves as minute by minute your family
Never knew that as night fell, they were losing you
Even the sky was numb, there was no rain
Except your cries and fading tears
Running out
Of hope
Of life
Of time

Now reporters, police, community leaders and government
Repeat their statements of shock and devastation
Phrases that puzzle and amplify the situation
Not of a small town but an entire nation
Editing their piece of the story to platform their thoughts
Their declarations of intolerance and vigilance
Thousands more stunned into shaking head silence
A sigh, like a last breath, stealing our words
Hardening our backs as we feel the ricochet
Of a history of attacks dating back further
Than we care to remember, yet similar in their impact
On a collective psyche so shattered, that we think
This story thankfully is not our own, that your suffering
The bones beneath its horrific truth are best left alone

But you must know, beloved brutalised one
That there are many more, who will not forget your name
This traumatic vibration across our hearts, in our bodies
That we will listen for what lessons we can learn and teach
Deeply consider the useful questions to be asked
We will weave poems, songs, dance this February 14th
With onebillionrising all over this troubled globe
Saluting your courage and resilience to the end
In our silence, our prayers and meditations
In our speaking into this darkness
Because we believe we must all mourn
Just as hard as we must work to manifest
A healing, a less bloodletting dawn
 
 
 
 
 
 
To the doctor who treated the raped baby and who felt such despair
Finuala Dowling
 
 
I just wanted to say on behalf of us all
that on the night in question
there was a light on in the hall
for a nervous little sleeper
and when the bleeding baby was admitted to your care
faraway a Karoo shepherd crooned a ramkietjie lullaby in the veld
and while you staunched
there was space on a mother-warmed sheet
for a night walker
and when you administered an infant-sized opiate
there were luxuriant dark nipples
for fist-clenching babes
and when you called for more blood
a bleary-eyed uncle got up to make a feed
and while you stitched
there was another chapter of a favourite story
and while you cleaned
a grandpa’s thin legs walked up and down for a colicky crier
and when finally you stood exhausted at the end of her cot
and asked, “Where is God?”,
a father sat watch.
And for the rest of us, we all slept in trust
that you would do what you did,
that you could do what you did.
We slept in trust that you lived.
 
 
 
Published in I Flying (Carapace, 2002).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 

© Peter Hughes

 
 
For Emma, Who Waits,
Joyce Ellen Davis
 
 
who considers murder,
her own blood dampening the straw.

In a fury as fierce and deep and hollow
as her girlhood gone to pieces

she clings to the unspeakable
things his fingers said as they ripped

the gingham: the stopped mouth, the stifled
tongue, the forced knees, the lost button.

The lost button.
She considers how the pitchfork might rise

from that Collins boy’s ribs, thinks
how her sewing scissors would slip easily

into the startled skin
of his bearded throat.

There is no pity from the angels sleeping
in their tender innocence.

No waking angel commands HALT! From the rafters.
No flaming sword drops fire from the loft.

Only the barn owl’s yellow gaze stares
back at her as the heavy wings of shame fall

across her naked breasts. How quietly she lies
as her clenched fist clings to the found button.
 
 
 

© Cassandra Gordon-Harris, ‘Low hills’
Oil painting

 
 
The Farmer’s Daughter
Michelle McGrane
 
 
She knows the mustiness of hay, and the clank of the pail in the barn at first light;
the corralled horses’ warmth and the pale eastern sun shining through the birch copse;
the path to sweet meadow grasses beyond the sea of nettles and brambles;
the sunken fenceposts, the weathered clapboard and the gaps in the floorboards.

She knows the smells of perch sizzling on the wood-stove, molasses loaves
wrapped in rum-soaked cloths, and plates piled with sawmill gravy and biscuits;
the lamplit porch and rusted chairs, the earthiness of mended boots and turnips,
the clicks and whirrs and rustles of insects in the wisteria.

She knows the rattling pickup’s headlights, the riff of sweat and moonshine
on the shawl she finds in the hickory’s shadow the day after her sister vanishes.
 
 
 
Published in Canopic Jar.
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 

© Naomi Woddis

 
 
Rescue
Grace Wells
 
 
In silence I’ll descend the mountain road.
They’ll not hear the gate or the lift of the latch
as I enter the black cottage where the only light
is her own dimmed glow. But I know my way, know
he is there to the left watching the film she has begged
him not to show. Any moment, the scene
where the football jock holds the head
of that woman beneath the pool
because she won’t suck his cock under water.

And I can feel the water tear the lining of her nose,
taste it in her mouth, its throb fill her lungs,
so the gasp that echoes down the years as she finally
bursts the surface, might be my own. I can still see
her crawl away from the edge, but I’ll leave that actress
limp away, for it is not her I have come to rescue,
not her I have come to rescue but my own self, hunted
to the bedroom shadows. The children curled in cots

and no sanctuary except that last crouched corner
of the house in the hole she burrows for herself
by the floor, quaking, beyond tears, her mouth,
her lungs, her penis-choked throat denied air.
What can I say to her? A ghost-self I have no tongue.
I hover, extend my arms, the arms, images
of the grown, safe children. Scoured of faith
she will not believe, I offer her blind eyes the world,
but nothing will let her rise from this moment,
only that I stretch out my hand, lay it
on her head, on the short stubble of her hair.
 
 
 
Published in When God Has Been Called Away To Greater Things (Dedalus Press, 2010).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 

© Theresa DiMenno

 
 
Clearing
Grace Wells
 
 
In winter I started, in those sparse days of low light.
I went to the back of the back field, hidden, hiding, and I began.

Ivy filleted the brambles. Elder grew awry, hawthorn
hobbled, root bound, fumbling over the tumbled wall.

Bracken encroached on the hill, spalted and matted, spare
and sparse and brown. It was January,

I was writing of the dark things he’d done; mornings
began with the tongue sealed to the roof of my mouth.

I prized free an old rose, overgrown, snarled up, thorned.
I trod the green of unseen bluebells back into the ground;

debris by the armload and sheep at my back, eating the dark
leaves where they fell and I didn’t think of cock and cunt

and the strings he pulled to move my puppet hands.
It was thorn and thicket, briar on briar till the loppers broke

snapped blade blunt in the bound knot of stem, ivy trussing trees
that wept and called out and no one heard

when I cried in the mornings, in the small room
we called the studio, sun pouring through the windows,

my white tissues heaping like snow. I wasn’t just weeping.
I spat. Rocking on my heels, fists at my eyes and on them

the scars of blackberry vines sewn through the old hedgerow,
thrusted deep, binding tighter, over, under, over

an impossible maze, impenetrable forest: undefeatable creature.
I cut and pulled, reeling wires of briar behind me, piling,

walling myself in, then sifting it all again, forking back and forth
over the field, building a bonfire higher than a man.

I was deranged. Time against me. The days short and new months
Falling fast, so I was driven, pursued. The red fox

of ambition never far off. I didn’t know it would take a year,
a whole year. The cured hedgerows leafed and emptied,

the black pool of fire’s scar grown over before I’d write
the last word, close those covers,
walk once more into the shimmering world.
 
 
 
First published in When God Has Been Called Away To Greater Things (Dedalus Press, 2010).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 

© Naomi Woddis

 
 
promised info
Nia Davies
 
 
1. people stick to death, she said
the lips are always mobile, they are agents
you need to pay attention

2. networks are great for making good things happen, the earth &
networks are great for spreading info
and for finding people who agree with you

3. a fortune, of lyric, good health
he had five character witnesses
slowly after hours of

4. it’s really so peaceful here on the internet,
except in moments when

5. Salubrious Place is a street in Swansea that is particularly dull
strangerhood you can find you anywhere
all hours, minnows
absinthe blue

6. each of these witnesses was a friend’s mother, or his mother’s friends
the real thing

7. I have learnt not to ask why too many times
it is simple
and difficult to reverse disgust

8. it was very easy to cut them out
notions can be stripped away

9. some of my emails carry no meaning and are irrelevant here
the incident is symbolised for me by a gate
networks great for buying anything you like

10. people stick to ‘truth’
the minnow lyric, statement &
five pairs of lips speaking
what they said is

11. you need to tell the truth, she said
who knows why I chose a gate
at the end of a front garden
 
 
 

© Lauren Jivani

 
 
I cry when he tries to put his hands on me or kiss me
Daniel Sluman
 
 
you said       his face coming & going in storms
as you told me how his nails slipped into you

like wine    you singed your eyes shut

dreamt of a perfectly-suited husband
but the image was interrupted by his grunts

& all the flowers turned    into themselves

in disgust      the hole-punch moon   mute
as you stared beyond his shoulder

& all that feeling dissolved away

your mother’s voice a penny shaking
in your head    both our heads

when I try to kiss the mascara from your eyes

& you shake so hard   saying it’s not you
please understand it’s not you
 
 
 

© Patricia Wallace Jones, ‘The Women in the Window’

 
 
Deadwood
James Wood
 
eald is thys eorthsaele/ond eal ic eom oflongad
 
 
I remember the suits
He used to wear
To the office: now he’s gone.
In the garden, he’d root
Up all the deadwood, weeds,

Cut and trim the grass
To a fine edge. They give me tea
To keep me awake in this home,
And pills that help me forget
My marriage, that big mistake.

My dress white, his black tie:
I still nod off sometimes,
Remembering his arms pinning
Me down to the ground,
His heart on my heart

And my mind elsewhere. There
Were drinks, then he’d beat me,
Then after, the blank promise
That he’d never dare
Do it again. Now I see

How wrong he was. And when
They told me he was dead
I felt his fingers spelling out
My name in hell. I knew then
Nothing could be said

To rid me of him. Outside
The rain falls and they’re getting drunk
On the green where we’d put up
The Maypole. The tears
I’ve cried are all the love

I ever knew. Now I’m rain
On this nursing home window,
Slipping away into nothingness:
I came from the sky to the ground
In search of a refuge I never found.
 
 
 

© Lorraine Adams

 
 
The Tear
Janet Rogerson
 
 
The tear was one inch
below her right eye.
Left undisturbed it would glint
and wobble when she talked or laughed.
It would stay there indefinitely,
she was used to it.
People who didn’t know her would offer
a tissue. Bold, good-looking men
would sometimes brush a rough hand
softly across her cheek. Her eye
would fill up like an actress
and a fresh tear would fall
so quickly down
and stop abruptly
in the exact same place,
this always affected them.
Scientists were fascinated, doctors
could not explain it,
though there had been tests.
She was invited to conferences
and even asked to appear on television.
She had learned to accept her unusual
affliction, and the attention
it caused; people called
her love and tilted their heads.
There had been a time
when she had felt so ashamed
she would constantly wipe the tear away
until her eye was scarlet and swollen.
One thing she had never told anyone:
if she wiped the tear away herself
the droplet burned her skin like
she imagined acid would,
though it left no scar.
A second thing she had never told anyone
was what they did that night, all those
years ago, the day the tear appeared.

© Lien Botha, from Portrette (1995)

 
Rape Poem
Marge Piercy
 
 
There is no difference between being raped
and being pushed down a flight of cement steps
except that the wounds also bleed inside.

There is no difference between being raped
and being run over by a truck
except that afterward men ask if you enjoyed it.

There is no difference between being raped
and being bit on the ankle by a rattlesnake
except that people ask if your skirt was short
and why you were out alone anyhow.

There is no difference between being raped
and going head first through a windshield
except that afterward you are afraid
not of cars
but half the human race.

The rapist is your boyfriend’s brother.
He sits beside you in the movies eating popcorn.
Rape fattens on the fantasies of the normal male
like a maggot in garbage.

Fear of rape is a cold wind blowing
all of the time on a woman’s hunched back.
Never to stroll alone on a sand road through pine woods,
never to climb a trail across a bald
without that aluminum in the mouth
when I see a man climbing toward me.

Never to open the door to a knock
without that razor just grazing the throat.
The fear of the dark side of hedges
the back seat of the car, the empty house
rattling keys like a snake’s warning.
The fear of the smiling man
in whose pocket is a knife.
The fear of the serious man
in whose fist is locked hatred.

All it takes to cast a rapist to be able to see your body
as jackhammer, as blowtorch, as adding-machine-gun.
All it takes is hating that body
your own, your self, your muscle that softens to flab.

All it takes is to push what you hate,
what you fear onto the soft alien flesh.
To bucket out invincible as a tank
armored with treads without senses
to possess and punish in one act,
to rip up pleasure, to murder those who dare
live in the leafy flesh open to love.
 
 
 
Published in Circles in the Water (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
  
 
 

© Victoria Bean, ‘Bang bang’, hand sewn Helvetica, unique edition

 
 
Bang bang
Victoria Bean
 
 
I’m on my way
to Hades, ladies

you coming?
Ladies lie

on concrete
still and listen

while they cry –
it’s war baby.

So who’s the one
they can’t forgive?

The one who says
you’ll live, or

the one who says
they’re sorry.
 
 
 

© Cassandra Gordon-Harris, ‘On The Edge of Time’
Oil painting

 
 
I Give You Back
Joy Harjo
 
 
I release you, my beautiful and terrible
fear. I release you. You were my beloved
and hated twin, but now, I don’t know you
as myself. I release you with all the
pain I would know at the death of
my children.

You are not my blood anymore.

I give you back to the soldiers
who burned down my house, beheaded my children,
raped and sodomized my brothers and sisters.
I give you back to those who stole the
food from our plates when we were starving.

I release you, fear, because you hold
these scenes in front of me and I was born
with eyes that can never close.

I release you
I release you
I release you
I release you

I am not afraid to be angry.
I am not afraid to rejoice.
I am not afraid to be black.
I am not afraid to be white.
I am not afraid to be hungry.
I am not afraid to be full.
I am not afraid to be hated.
I am not afraid to be loved.

to be loved, to be loved, fear.

Oh, you have choked me, but I gave you the leash.
You have gutted me but I gave you the knife.
You have devoured me, but I laid myself across the fire.

I take myself back, fear.
You are not my shadow any longer.
I won’t hold you in my hands.
You can’t live in my eyes, my ears, my voice
my belly, or in my heart my heart
my heart my heart

But come here, fear
I am alive and you are so afraid
                                                 of dying.
 
 
 
Published in How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems: 1975 – 2001
(W.W. Norton and Company Inc., 2002).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 

© Victoria Bean, ‘Bang bang’, hand sewn Helvetica

 
 
Growing Grove of Laurel Trees
Valeria Melchioretto
 
 
Below the belt where the Gordian Knot is still uncut
ancient Aphrodite long since confused love and lust
while seedy Zeus is free to rule with phallic thunder.

No disguise is too sly as he hunts with crude desire:
He turns into a swan, a white bull or a pissy shower
exploits and cons and conquers through selfish power.

Did no one dare protest about these sickening deeds?
Phlegyas faced the Gods and was punished in return
seen by Dante in the circle of hell where the sullen dwell.

Poor Castalia got away by becoming a speaking spring
and those who drink from her can hear a lyric lament
others were spared as Gaia turned them into laurel trees.

Because white noise has it that in that oracular tradition
even a tree is more sacred than a woman’s dignity.
Endless list of victims: Coronis, Europa, Leda, Melia.

Unwilling nymphs are labelled ‘lying nymphomaniacs’
taken to shameful woods and dragged through mire
then banned to Lesbos, lonely rocks or harder places.

If offspring hatched from eggs foul play was obvious
but subtler hints were denied even by night’s furies.
Zeus begot Apollo, rape begot rape; the curse stayed myth.
 
 
 

© Alel

 
 
From Philomela
Gill McEvoy
 
 
It
 
 
I touch the cigarette
to my arm.
Here. And here.

I cannot speak of it.

I could touch this fuse
to my chair,
watch it smoulder,
flame to roaring fury.

I told no-one.

The burned flesh is not
the heat of his hand
across my mouth.

The sour smell of match
is not the stink of his breath.

I didn’t go to the police.

I wasn’t asking for it.

I was not asking for it.
 
 
 
Unwanted
 
 
I have cancelled
the way my body could not fight
the rugby scrum of him.

The little heartbeat I will say
is my own heartbeat.

When its time comes
I’ll demand strong drugs.

It will be handed on
to someone else.

And none of this will have happened.
 
 
 
Back Street
 
 
They lead me to a table
where later they will sit and eat.

The women weave about with bowls and cloths,
fold my trembling legs to raise my knees.

One draws on rubber gloves.
She takes a pump, its ball bright orange
in that room of hush and shadow.

They close around me,
hissing through my parted knees
in their strange tongue,
each one familiar with this art.

Pain. The room goes dark.

Out of the darkness
someone whispers, “Come!”

They make me totter to the street.
I find my way alone,
clutching at walls.
 
 
 

© Malgorzata Lazarek

 
 
Phylactery
Sophie Mayer
 
 
My mouth used to hold
your water. A vase I was (say:
vessel) all floral-spoked
& speaking: pure pure pure
as law. This

knuckle clavicle

mouthful
chewed & throated to you. Choker,
much. Narrow as they say &
swallow.

o my mouth

knuckle clavicle

unholds your water,
sweet source. Loosener,
marsh-runner, our lady of
statuary hung among
trees. Chatelaine of strange
fruit & the bloodied tunic.
Found object, little wing,
thin veneer of angel
on the verge. Kill me
now, before I turn, before
I fly. I

knuckle clavicle

mouth an O
cannot no
let him leave me
from you. No
nock me, fingers
to my fletch, forever
your girl, prayerful
this fall & broken no

knuckle
clavicle

that I am no woman no
dawn gives thanks.
Thirteen times
& strike.
 
 
 
Note: Phylactery – or tefillin – are leather arm bindings worn by observant Jewish men for morning prayers, which include an expression of gratitude to God that he had not made them female.
 
 
 

© Victoria Bean, ‘Bang bang’, hand sewn lower case Helvetica

 
 
Madhavesana
Shazea Quraishi
 
 
Once more this
pressing of bodies, his desire
beating against me as the eagle’s wings
against the air that lifts him up, up.

My body has learned to soften
and bend, but my heart,
like a child who will not listen, clings
to a soft, grubby thing.

After I have washed the sweat,
the trails of saliva from my skin,
I stand at the open window,
let the breeze dry my face.
 
 
 
Published in The Courtesans Reply (flipped eye publishing, 2012).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 

© Diane Victor, ‘Little straight dress’

 
 
Lesson from the Gospel
Helen Moffett
 
 
Last night he grabbed my breast,
jerked my hair, called me a whore;
this morning he kneels in church,
eyes shut, hands devout in prayer.
This diptych is no stranger to God’s house:
first, the outrages raining on egg-shell flesh
and reeling ears; next, the pose of public piety.

These events transpired half a life ago.
No helplines then, no thought of blaming
anyone but myself.

But God helps those who help themselves;
like countless others, I survived.
While church, state and law all looked aside,
I harvested a rustling crop of rage:
as a child who tilts a bubbling pot knows pain –
I’d know the stink of whitened sepulchre again.
 
 
 
Published in Incwadi.
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
  
 
 

© Virginia Erdie, ‘Tangerine Dream’ from ‘Not just an ICON …’
36″ x 36″ on wood, with cardboard, molding paste and resin

 
 
Hide
Helen Ivory
 
 
My father made me a dress
from patches of sky
on my mother’s old sewing machine.
He stitched them together
with lengths of her hair
and carved all the buttons
from her neat white teeth
but I would not give him my heart.

My father made me a dress
from the light of the moon
pinned into place
with her fine finger bones.
He made me a dress as bright as the sun
and sewed her gold wedding ring
into the hem
but I would not give him my hand.

My father offered me
the pelt of his dog —
how quickly his knife
freed that beast from its skin.
I climbed inside while it was still warm,
zipped it up tight
then walked into the fire
so he could not give me his love.
 
 
 
Published in Waiting for Bluebeard (Bloodaxe Books, 2013).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 

© Cassandra Gordon-Harris, ‘First Breath’
Oil painting

 
Glow
Karen Jane Cannon
 
 
You cloud lenses, suck
colour from the earth to enhance your glow.

Your sister moon brings peace, monthly flows
but you burn with a desire to steal

the glow of young girls, inflict
wounds too deep to salve.

You eat away what the moon has given.
Demeter—forcefeed

Persephone on pomegranate seeds,
keep her safe in her underworld winter. Let other girls

throw away their clothes, be betrayed
by cancerous rays. Hide

in the shadow of a sundial, worship
a plummeting vial of mercury.
 
 
 

© Patricia Wallace Jones, ‘Loss’

 
 
From ‘Demeter’
Emer Gillespie

IX
 
 
For nine days and nine longer nights,
I searched everywhere.
In shopping malls I put up posters of my daughter,
‘Missing’. In Westfield, gangs of girls linked arms
and passed them by without looking.
The hive hummed on without her.
In ancient times the Minotaur was locked up
deep within the bowels of the Earth.
A winding maze, a Labyrinth,
designed by Daedalus, father of ambitious Icarus,
kept him in his place. The price?
Seven boys and seven girls brought to
satisfy his appetite for human flesh.
All know that Theseus defeated him.
The Minotaur is dead, but the Beast lives on.
This annual harvest of our girls –
year in, year out, it comes about;
no one knows who next or when.
At least in ancient times the victims
found some glory. Their plight, their sacrifice,
bought freedom for the rest.
Now we lose our perfect daughters one by one.
Each sordid story soils our whole society.
I knew someone had seen just her sex –
not my Persephone.
 
 
 
Published in The Instinct Against Death (Pindrop Press, 2012).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.
 
 
 

 
 
 
A Prayer for my Children
Geoffrey Philp
 
 
When you find yourself in a faraway land
surrounded by men, animals that mutter strange
sounds, do not be afraid: neither you, your parents,

nor your ancestors have ever been alone.
So trust the earth to bear you up, follow
the wind as it leads you through valleys

clustered with trees heavy with fruit –
some that seem familiar enough to eat,
but you still aren’t sure they are the same

as the ones you left on the other side
of the river that you’ve now forgotten.
Eat. Feast on the bounty. Feed the fire

that burns away the knot in your stomach,
sets ablaze the horizon, all that your eyes
can see – that has been promised

to you since your cry pierced the morning air:
your parents bathed you with kisses,
baptized you with caresses,

swaddled you in care before you uttered
your first words to the moon, sun, stars,
wobbled your first steps into unknowing –

all the while rising into your inheritance.
And if you awaken under the branches of a cotton
tree, cradled in its roots, draw a circle around

yourself and all those whom you love, cross
yourself three times before you step over
the threshold. Welcome the ancestors,

all the kindly spirits who have followed you,
your parents across many seas, oceans,
and deserts; entertain them with strong drink

and soft food: rice, yams, bananas, the ever
present rum to bless the hands that have lifted
you up, and sanctified the place you now call home.
 
 
 
Published in Dub Wise (Peepal Tree Press Ltd, 2010).
Reproduced with the author’s permission.