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Women in Black, and: Unarmed Bodyguard: You Will Hear the Lutes
- Prairie Schooner
- University of Nebraska Press
- Volume 79, Number 2, Summer 2005
- pp. 100-101
- 10.1353/psg.2005.0072
- Article
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
Prairie Schooner 79.2 (2005) 100-101
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Two Poems
Marilyn Krysl
Women In Black
for Marilyn HackerWe stand the wind in our black coats. We stand
our vow. In furious love we stand the shoppers'
logoed bags. A woman passes, wraps
herself hand over hand in mink. She shutsus out: won't look. A boyman, blond,
soft as a dandelion's seeding head,
smiles his shyness. Guys drive by –
and one leans out and makes a fist and yells:Nuke the dykes, Nuke Saddam, Nuke 'em all!
Those hits quick slaps across a woman's face –
and now admit the truth: I made that man
from what I can't deny. Just as I made,
beside the dandelion boy, a girl –
who both slide into our line beside me.
Unarmed Bodyguard: You Will Hear the Lutes
for Dr. SaravanamuttuBecause when they came for her son she saw their faces,
I pulled on the tee with the logo in three languages
and walked into the dirt street with this woman [End Page 100]
they wanted to kill. We knew they were watching,
they could shoot her and leave me alive, or shoot us both –
either would prove they could kill anyone they wanted –
and they needed that fleeting bit of power, they hadso little. Blossoms of Plumeria opened
their mouths. The perfume sang its faint song,
and I heard and took her hand, a thing we didn't do –
our hands might make them mad, anger's a drug
and a turn on – and I said I'm scared. The worldcan tear. Our hands, the glare, that street so hot
and white, the light a blare – and here a man
with just one hand thrust out his begging bowl.
Before you die, they say, give something away:the tinder of our coins flared up and caught,
a fiery meal he'd eat with that one hand.
And did they watch us linking hands again,
passing the kiosk where they probably bought
cigarettes? God, she said – she was Catholic – loves
our courage and loves our fear. He loves both things.
This woman who was not my lover but the Beloved –
come to me in the flesh here on the earth.
...