numberless, armorless,
it's not the distant
humming at the cradle that I hear,
nor the reaper's harmonies,
unbearable, or any strumming
at the loom --the rug they weave
of many strings-- or widows winding
graves into their song.
Instead I think of the cruel
silences: the girl grown mute
in wedlock, so as not
to talk back; and the bride
sworn in her home to be
dumb as a doornail all her life,
nor bother her mother-in-law;
the lonely schoolteachers
in every little town,
pale-lipped, home-bound.
And all the beauties taken abroad
and wed for life unto a foreign tongue,
all those who died without
a word --O future in my blood-- to lose
in silence what is most your own,
before your lover and your world,
before your hearth and self, unsung,
misunderstood-- that's why
there are so many poets among women in my land.
The mute whos speech
is suddenly restored
will rend the air
with a moan or shout--
centuries of silence
crying to come out.
