The Pelvis

As women we must
protect ourselves
and daughters:

from green card seekers
and noise makers,
from insufficient funds
and defects in plumbing,
from hosts of maurauding males
and temptation get thee behind me,
from wrinkles
and cysts the size of a golf ball,
from eating disorders
and too much salt,
from underwear stains
and chalk dust,
from history written by victors
and Victor's history,
from having children too close together
and infertility,
from drinking in the closet
and DUI's,
from rapists
and adulterers,
from monsters under the bed
and ones under the sheets,
from slashed wrists
and overdosed best friends,
from so-called loves
and reading Lolita,
from talking too much
and talking too little.

We women must protect,
virginity in all of it's guises,
the way it follows us to the grave,
held in our pelvis
in some part of the bone.

II

He is the kind of man
who gives back
what he took
so long ago it doesn't matter anymore.
A boy who pilfers an apple
attached to a string
in the corner market stall.

III

Getting caught.