All my life I have lived as subordinate, the “second”, a slave
In a world with no place for liberation, and the cracks in a vase
You may know me as obedience and all the broken women
Pacing the empty halls of history, an ornament among all the
Brave men. When I was young mother said to keep my mouth
Shut like a bear trap, because quiet invasion is better than all
This bloodshed. But I am older now and I fight like a woman
In this clamorous pandemonium, because I see the illness eat
At my mother in her bed and in our kitchen when she thinks
Nobody can see her weep.
This second wave feminist poem describes the narrator’s relationship with her mother and other fellow women: the work describes the role of women in history and relates it to the narrators’ mother’s experience of being a housewife. The poem describes what motivated the narrator to become a feminist (seeing her mother as a miserable housewife and being taught to comply with the patriarchy’s demands as a child) and explores why her mother finds herself living in such deep unhappiness. The poem convey’s the author’s desire for change, and an end to the generational trauma that plagues her family as a result of patriarchal oppression.
Erika