- The Ballad of Anita Hill
Cave Canem: A Special Section
I.
Beside a graveled path, stately trees sweep back into a sudden arc: sun cuts the bristly green rug. Joggers wheeze to a walk, watch the quiet field become
a trembling of squirrels and small birds. Cobwebs, dusty with dew, cloud the shrubs: spiders enthrall, simply by spinning out silken sinews
fraught deep within them. Bereft of fear, you were bright when you took center stage: not dancing, perhaps, but clear: prickly with bloodless truths. Winter
fell, heavy and wet, quite out of season, innocent. As if snow needs a reason.
II.
Sit up straight. Smile. Don’t smile. Wear that nice suit, you know, the blue one with the knee-length hem. Say a prayer: just a quick, silent “Thy will be done.”
Bring your family (nuclear only). Make sure they dress middle-class and hug you affectionately. Be strong, or fake it, but in a womanly way. Don’t be smug
or shy or prudish or loose, when testifying that he said “pussy” or “penis” on the job: push the words out, as if they were defying gravity, then let them fly. Weep. Don’t sob. [End Page 1003]
Exude celibacy—heterosexual style. Sit up straight. Smile. Don’t smile.
III.
We crowned you for a day, a week, Miss Black America: knew you as a round, brown face pegged in a sharp, square frame: condemned your lack of style—those tailored suits could never grace
the breasts of chocolate milk, the fleshy hips we knew you had, the way an evening gown would have: judged you on the size of your lips, their color, whether they trembled, or turned down:
considered your talents—writing, teaching law— yet ranked you highest for your undemonstrated but patent skill at giving head (we saw through your disguise): and ultimately rated
you a queen-bitch-Jezebel-matriarch-whore, destroyer of black manhood, and so much more.
Evie Shockley is a candidate for the PhD in English at Duke University. Her work has been published in African American Review, Black Arts Quarterly, Blue Mesa Review, and The North American Review.