To speak to my last blog entry, here is the full text of the wonderful poem by Enid Dame.

   

Cinderella

   

Every daughter has two mothers:

my good mother believes in government.

She loves and distrusts her house.

She scours the ceiling, scrubs the floor with a toothbrush.

Father’s been gone for years.

   

My bad mother is an anarchist.

She sleeps late in a cobweb bed.

She walks through the house naked,

feeds tramps at the back door.

   

My good mother says: “Your body is disgusting.

It flops and bulges; it has no self-control.

I must keep you locked in this basement

because your smell would overpower the city.

Boys would fall out windows for lust of you.

A young woman is a walking swamp.

She leaks and oozes. Insects and toads cling to her hair.

She draws trouble

like a pile of manure draws flies.”

    

My bad mother likes to walk barefoot

in mud. Cats and dogs sniff her crotch.

She laughs. She gathers flowers:

shameless daylilies,

bluebells seductively

open their skirts for her.

My bad mother says, “Trust your body.”

    

My good mother gives me a necklace of cowrie shells.

I think they are ugly. They look like vaginas

with jagged, sharp teeth.

My bad mother hands me

a garland of dark red roses.

They are beautiful. But they too look like vaginas.

My good mother says, “If I let you go to the ball,

don’t come home with a man or a belly.

If you do, I’ll kill myself.

    

My bad mother says,

“Someday you’ll bring home a man.

I’ll make him chicken soup.

I’ll knit you an afghan

to warm yourself under.

If he says your body smells like fern and rain-worked earth,

if he says your juices taste like flowers     then

stick with him.

Whoever he is,

He’ll be a prince.”