RoeV. Dobbs
All of your rulings— don’t defend me,
you put the screws to a mother, I declare
my ovaries, my womb my own red jewels.
stripped by America’s pitiless spirits. Cruel,
men who are dead and gone the fascist right-wayers have
taken my health care hung me, on a hanger
pained me penniless slit me, gutted, I drip pus,
called me bloody slut I’m not in Kansas anymore
no fairy tales I’m incested, a rape case,
Arrested by the closed robe’s anatomy of poverty,
my back’s-up, Against it the alley’s only wall.
Click here to read Pamela Gemme on the origin of the poem.
Image: Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash, licensed under CC 2.0.
Pamela Gemme was born to working class parents and grew up in Gardner, Massachusetts. She went to state universities, is a poet, artist, political activist, and a child protection social work consultant for Massachusetts’s DCF. Recent or forthcoming publications include The American Journal of Poetry, Haiku Journal, The Chicago Quarterly Review, Heliotrope Anthology, SoFloPoJo, Ibbetson Street Magazine and many others. Pamela co-edited Essential Voices: A Covid-19 Anthology forthcoming from WVU Press in July 2023.
Latest posts by Pamela Gemme (see all)
- Roe V. Dobbs - June 4, 2023