History

All accounts of the past
are his story, the battles won
inventions and works of art created,
all assembled in chronological order

Women are the unspoken part
her story not accounted in textbooks
except when she is a receptacle for his seed
or presents a respectable dowry such as a kingdom

or treaty. Eve is remembered for her sin
and how it was her fault; the Fall of Man.
All of Henry VIII’s wives are only footnotes
to his reign, Marie Antoinette lost her head,

Betsy Ross sewed a flag.
China’s parents want only sons
but without their daughters they will be
obliterated without a war or a plague.

Polygamous marriages are available
to Muslim or Fundamentalist men
no harems or concubines for the females
their stories relegated to reality shows

but who really cares about Hilton, Kardashian or Lohan
it’s Eve’s story all over again but without the class.
Strong women go almost unnoticed in their roles
as leaders, teachers, warriors and mothers.

It seems men prefer to have their women’s faces covered
in cloth or hidden in make-up, keeping them off
balance in bound feet or high heeled shoes because women
can bleed without dying and give birth again and again.