Quen Took

We

                                we

                                                                we three,

                                                                              loose the vipers from our heads and tend our venomed curls. Sister, sister, sister. Our eyes glow with a dreadful light. Most fearsome of all, our fat and fertile bodies. Woman kind. Our drooping breasts, our dripping quims. Our thighs shake when we walk; two towers of jellied might.

            Beauty is just fashion. We fashion ourselves.

            Are we witches? Are we demons? No.

            We are the women who are all women.  

            When we were banished from the world, it did not take us long to know what Lilith, Eve, and Helen knew too; that man is full of fear and spite, scorched by pride. He will move to destroy that which he cannot comprehend. Man is the enemy of woman because he does not understand her.

             Now, fear us, oath-breaker, unworthy man who scorns. The father who teaches what no child should know.  The spoilt prince, who takes what is not his.  The judge who rules against a woman’s right to choose.

            O sisters, take these righteous tears and make them hard as iron. Take this defeated woman, and sharpen her teeth with an old bone.

           We fortify the avenging woman with our sinew, heap her shoulders with courage as she stands in the dock with her knuckles white and her knees trembling and says him – he did it. We visit every child who flees a broken home, visit her in the quiet places where she worships at the altar of her own voice. When she is ready to speak, we are the trumpet that calls out on the air for justice.

          We sprang from blood, we reap blood, and we sow.  

Grudging

                                avenging

                                                                ceaseless.                                                                           Hell hath no Fury.