RAPE POEMS
(for C.C. and C.E.)
#1
“the thing
about it
was, i knew
the nigger”
a “good” rape happens
all the time,
you know him
it has been a good
date or a bad one,
you’re sober or slightly
glowing or tipsy, rarely
high or drunk, mostly
straight awake
at first he’s
insistent,
you say no,
he hesitates
but then the time comes,
the bogart begins, the
hands ruff on your
body, the methodical
pressure to make you
give it up
in the movies there is
always this mean magical minute
when each woman’s resistance
melts, her semi-serious
pleas of “no” and “don’t”
turn to methodical breathing
and clothes peeling off
in soft piles of nylons & synthetics
with a searing hot
french kiss
but this is not the movies
all you feel is pain,
as this man violates
you, again and
again
it is not passion nor pleasure
but pure physical pressure
that forces your
submission
suddenly you are not even
there, he is over your body
in your body
but you
you are not even there,
only, for truth
you are there
right there getting raped
afterwards you wash yourself
and douche but do not cry
and seldom call the police,
after all it happens
to lots of women
all the time, why
feel sorry for yourself,
you’ve been raped
before
and the thing about
it is, you thought
you knew the nigger
#2
your husband, your
lover, your duty
it is
no less a crime
when he makes you
do it, invoking
the finalness of his fists
the holiness of his husbandness
the whoreness of your wifeness
sailing smugly
and nonchalantly
through your body
like as if his penis
and a piece of paper
(with some judge’s signature
endorsed by the state)
gives him omnipotent license
and unlimited rights
of passage through
the waters of your vagina
but then this rape
(like most rapes
in this society)
this rape
in the final
analysis
is legal.
#3
few men know
how it feels to get fucked
to lay there and take
it in and out
when you don’t want to
maybe in the prisons
and behind bars
when dudes turn out
young males
but on the streets
and in the bedrooms, in
back seats of cars
and office suites
around the world
few men realize
what rape
really is
—kalamu ya salaam