Girl you are not a girl anymore
you are a woman
woman you are reviled and judged
for being a woman
when you were a girl it was suffice to
have a nice pair of legs and a pretty mouth
do you recall how often you were asked to ‘cheer up and smile love’
when all you were doing was trying to grow-up and be serious?
how men would do your bidding because of your WonderBra and not the sense of your words
now you are a woman
you will inherit
inequality
double-standards
and not be able to find clothes that feel right in stores not meant for your body
because nothing is going to come easy anymore and still
as you sit there in your curves and your burgeoning skin
feeling the surround of yourself lapping at the corners
you will inherit also
the voice of your round bellied ancestors
who have come ringing through time and again
been judged, poked, prodded or worse, flat out ignored
seen how silver haired men get all the fuss like carefully licked jewels
whilst a woman of substance is
lost lost lost
behind the mad din and snuff of youth
for youth it seems needs a distinguished father of any age
but does not require
a mother
a grandmother
a female sage
for women are judged upon their reproductive abilities and
the years they have lived beneath the moon listening to the shore
if too few, they are deemed unintelligent
too many and nobody wants to hear
for women are judged upon
scales created long before
an even playing field was won
if it has, if it has yet
for women it is easier to become lost after the lights have grown less hot
held to a higher standard than the eternal covet of men
who are picked up and dusted off by many worshipful female hands
too eager to say ‘there, there, I will help you, poor thing’
who shall help then, the woman?
Not her own kind, surely, nor men who adore only youngest vintage
Who shall see her? When she is grown and perhaps does not accept her allotted place
or wish to remain invisible or grow old with pressurized grace
who shall listen when she wants to be heard at any age?
or the desires of her are beyond the sanctioned pail
or her damp passion which does not flip and flop and require Viagra
a woman if she is loved
is ten-fold her maiden self
for the wefts and the welts are earned and learned and now they represent
a splendid coat of multicolor
she wears with pride and sometimes regret
but more often silver wisdom and the softening yet
of her edges into rounded corners and eventually
a supple circle come full
the world may dominate her discourse
the youth may clamor for their right to change the channel
she may slip quietly through the bridled noise
with strong thick womanly thighs
and as men chase their tail and young women cast a gaze that seems to say
who the HELL do you think you are, old lady?
woman, you do not bat your eyes or rise to those absurdities left behind
for she is the wake of day and dusted sleep of night
cradling the future in her all-mighty grip
she learns from being kicked
to stand she must let go of the girl within and be
a woman of our time
casting her pearly net wide as she
swallows the sea and sighs
letting the tide tumble out with her exhaled breath
aaahhh yes
aaahhh yes