As Property Protests - A Poem to the Voice of Shifting Unrest

 image by A.Rafaele Ciriello

They thrashed her within an inch of her life
Told her it would make her a wise woman, a better wife
For this Life was never about her skin that bled woman in the dust
She’d have to wait for the next

There were no floodgates; no bastion could hold her tongue
It sat ripe, ripe for bursting

Marinating in the velvet, thorny seat of her will

Fatima had to snare her trembling agitation

With prayers and bitten lips

She herself, had to hobble her insurgent instinct to express at the knees

Forcing her Self to kneel at every clock tick,

In every sunbeam

And every crack of light she could find

THIRTY-SOMETHING WOMEN HAVE CATS BECAUSE...

Giovanni. My Familiar -  Born Spring 1993. Died August 29th 2010

1. because independence is written in the skies of their eyes   

2. because switching when you don’t want to be touched there 

makes sense. A paw swipe with claws in is a warning. 

Don’t complain the next time when they’re out.

3. because it’s the tail that gives it away. 

Attention must be paid to your own subtitles.

His own paw print. His own identity.

4. to remind them to enchant themselves 

with their own intelligence.

5. because they are beautiful creatures - 

long haired or short, sleek or stumpy, 

tabby or ginger, pure bred or mixed.

6. to remind them that catching rats and 

bringing them home is generally a bad idea