For Helen, who lost her children in a divorce custody battle.

Ordered by butchers
of the courts
you drive away in a
faded blue Plymouth

Meat hooks rip you open
nakedly your eyes
stare
as three
young daughters cry
in your
rear view mirror

you are
punished for f***ing

while centuries of men
claim their guiltless
passions
and I
many miles away

lock your pain inside
cold storage until
years later,
I, too
leave a courtroom

branded while
greedy husbands count
and recount money
you reach with

outstretched hand to
daughters now turned
women, to me
and our countless
sisters who have
been to hell and back.

When they stone
one woman
they stone us all.


Miriam K. Center