She Learned Her Name

Safety was in hiding deep inside
dark safer still then there with them

Learned quickly of her name, shame
filthy whore, bitch who like the

Dog in heat raised men’s organs
just by being there, poor man

Can’t control these things, needs woman
or small girl child to fix this throbbing

Thing that hangs like so much
rotting meat between their legs

Hear the courage it takes to reach
through hell, retrieving anger raging soul

See the thousand demons faced to
know the truth of girl child beginning

Count drops of sweating blood
during painful repeated rapes

Feel the terror lived, horror
torture chamber long survived

Allow awareness to settle isolation
secrets kept, the only protection

Thirty years and more being that
which woman is allowed to be

Developed that part of female soul
that was accepted as woman’s role

Kindness understanding tenderness, compassion
doing for others, brings dignified place in the world

Listen carefully, hear the jingle of fragments
shattered glass, pieces of woman’s life

Desperation calls deep within laying
claim to other voices, lion’s rage

Now at long last
She knows her name

-Betsy-
November 1989