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.”
