You ought
Be glad
The old days
Are gone
When unruly women
Burned for witches
Rose from the ashes
And ate men like you
Flayed them
Sternum to groin
With a kitchen knife
Wrapped thighs like paperweights
Around their necks
And drew their mouths
To hemlock kisses.
You ought
be glad
The old ways
Are dead
And the war
Is fought
With words and keyboards
Sharp steel narratives
And public flaying on CNN
Hashtags
And biting little birds
Refusing to be quiet
That tweet your shameful
Secrets for the world to see
In 280 characters or less.
We rise.
The nooses are digital
The poison rhetorical,
But make no mistake,
We eat men like you
On air.
Monica Swindle now lives in St. Louis, MO after stints on the East coast and the frigid wasteland of Minnesota. She hasn’t thought to publish anything in years though she writes frequently in between working as an instructional designer, teaching English and Gender Studies online at a community college and a university, and momming, singly, two teenage girls.