In Parts
– Poetry by D. E. Fulford –
In the past two days
two different women
told me they were
Raped.
The nonchalance
with which this was
uttered made me take
pause
but only to myself
I didn’t want them to think
I thought it was bigger
than what they, themselves,
gave to me.
In a time when
myriad women
have detailed their own
Handling
By the nation’s leader
And are called
Liar Whore Gold digger
it’s no wonder
my friends
detonate their
truth bombs right
in my face without blinking
and my reserve to
accept this reality is
riddled with reticence.
Last winter, an older man,
made a pass at me
while I had my dog
out for a pee.
It had been years since anyone
spoke to me in that way.
I do not linger in
hazy drunken moments.
I’m not scantily clad,
never “asking for it” by
swaying my hips
a little too much
by knowing my clout in
well-constructed cleavage.
And few women—not none, not all—wake up
to look in the mirror any morning and think,
“Today, I am simply a vagina.
I am breasts, I am legs and ass alone.
I am solely my parts.”
I had my dog out for a pee,
in the chill of January in Colorado,
and the man was someone
casually known
around the neighborhood.
We had been in his apartment,
bought his wife’s homemade apple butter
and passed it out at Christmas to our families.
We thought him
merely kind
and thought ourselves fortunate
to have a real “neighbor.”
A younger version of me
likely would have
thought his pass as par.
Commonplace
though with reluctant acceptance
the dutiful space most
girls and women occupy
at least during portions
of their lives.
And few men—not all, not none—wake up
to gaze down at themselves in the shower and think,
“Today, I am simply a penis.
I am pecs, I am legs and ass alone.
I am separate in parts.”
Our brains differ
our wiring not akin.
But we feel
much the same
and could help each other
be whole if we tried.
About the Author – D. E. Fulford
D. E. Fulford is a writer and English instructor at Colorado State University. She has been honored with publication of various poetry, non-fiction, and fictional endeavors in Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Sunspot Literary Journal, Allegory Ridge’s poetry anthology (Aurora), Inklette Magazine, the Same Literary Journal, and others. She resides on the front range of the Rocky Mountains with her partner Levi and their chocolate Labrador, The Walrus. In pockets of spare time, she can be found hiking with her family, and riding her Triumph Street Twin motorbike.
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