What is a good wife

 The cleaner of dishes

Washer woman tisking

Saying take off your shoes

Might ruin the carpet, heaven forbid

Were we born only caretakers

Of children and posessions?

Who can argue the value of children

But to exist in domesticity

Only to tidy and cook

Puts such limits on femininity

We can reach out only

As far as our home extends

Can one assume birds pleased with cages

Because they go back willingly to them?

Feminists went too far and yet didn't

Dare go far enough

Pulling the elastic of society taut

Then just suddenly letting go

My generation that snap back

Still female equals less than

The posessions we care for...  

© 2006 C.Nichols