The Woman Dandles
by Sondra Ball
The woman dandles the pills in her hand,
plays with the loaded gun,
contemplating.
The lamp behind her head
glows softly through her black braids,
casting a shiny halo about her head.
She dandles the pills in her hand,
thinking.
She is not alone.
She is the mother of children:
Crystal and Carl and baby Cathleen.
She is her mother's daughter,
and her sister's sibling
and her husband's wife
and a friend to her friends.
She is all the women who have been beaten,
all the men who have been raped,
all the children who have been tortured.
Her story is their story.
Her ending is their ending.
When she was small,
she ate persimmons and water cress
her mother gathered from the fields.
She swam in the river
with her brothers and her sisters.
She sat on her grandmother's lap
in a rocking chair on an old wooden porch.
She was raped and beaten and tortured
by a team of hooded men.
Voices ring through her head:
her cat meowing at the door,
her baby crying,
her grandmother singing,
men in white hoods whispering.
Visions swirl before her eyes:
frybread fresh from the oven,
friends stomp dancing,
her husband walking with her on moon lit nights,
her brother swinging from a rope noose.
The woman dandles the pills in her hand,
plays with loaded gun,
debating …
volume 12(6)
March 15, 2008
This poem is copyright © 2008,
Sondra Ball, all rights reserved.
Find more poems by Sondra Ball.
The Web Projects of Sondra Ball and Mario Cavallini
