"He’ll be all right” I said, “we could
have hit the guy as easy as anybody, it
wasn’t anybody’s fault, they’ll know that,”
women so often say dumb things like that,
they teach us to be sweet and reassuring,
and say ignorant things, because we don’t invent
the crime, the punishment, the bridges
that same week I looked into the mirror
and nobody was there to testify;
how clear, an unemployed queer woman
makes no witness at all,
nobody was there for
those two questions: what does
she do, and who is she married to?"
have hit the guy as easy as anybody, it
wasn’t anybody’s fault, they’ll know that,”
women so often say dumb things like that,
they teach us to be sweet and reassuring,
and say ignorant things, because we don’t invent
the crime, the punishment, the bridges
that same week I looked into the mirror
and nobody was there to testify;
how clear, an unemployed queer woman
makes no witness at all,
nobody was there for
those two questions: what does
she do, and who is she married to?"
— Judy Grahn, from her poem “A Woman is Talking to Death” (1974)
