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5 Years of Mukto-Mona |
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5 Years of Mukto-Mona
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With No Immediate Cause
by: Ntozake Shange
- every 3 minutes a woman is beaten
- every five minutes a
- woman is raped/every ten minutes
- a little girl is molested
- yet I rode the subway today
- I sat next to an old man who
- may have beaten his old wife
- 3 minutes ago or 3 days/30 years ago
- he might have sodomized his daughter
- but I sat there
- cuz the men on the train
- might beat some young women
- later in the day or tomorrow
- I might not shut my door fast
- enough push hard enough
- every 3 minutes it happens
- some women's innocence
- rushes to her cheeks/pours from her mouth
- like the betsy wetsy dolls have been torn
- apart/their mouths
- menses red split/every
- three minutes a shoulder
- is jammed through plaster and the oven door/
- chairs push thru the rib cage/hot water or
- boiling sperm decorate her body
- I rode the subway today
- and bought a paper from an east Indian man who might
- have held his old lady onto
- a hot pressing iron/ I didn't know
- maybe he catches little girls in the
- parks and rips open their behinds
- with steel rods/ I can not decide
- what he might have done I
- know every 3 minutes
- every 5 minutes every 10 minutes
- I boughtt the paper
- looking for the announcement
- there has to be an announcement
- of the women's bodies fond
- yesterday the missing little girl
- I sat in a restaurant with my
- paper looking for the announcement
- a young man served me coffee
- I wondered did he pour the boiling
- coffee on the woman because she was stupid
- did he put the infant girl in
- the coffee pot because she cried too much
- what exactly did he do with hot coffee
- I looked for the announcement
- the discover of the dismembered
- woman's body
- victims have not all been
- identified today they are
- naked and dead/some refuse to
- testify girl out of 10 is not
- coherent/ I took the coffee
- and spit it up I found an
- announcement/ not the woman's
- bloated body in the river floating
- not the child bleeding in the
- 59th street corridor/ not the baby
- broken on the floor/
- "there is some concern
- that alleged battered women
- might start to murder their
- husbands and lovers with no
- immediate cause"
- I spit up I vomit I am screaming
- we all have immediate cause
- every 3 minutes
- every 5 minutes
- every 10 minutes
- every day
- women's bodies are found
- in alleys and bedrooms/at the top of the stairs
- before I ride the subway/buy a paper of drink
- coffee from your hands I must know
- have you hurt a woman today
- did you beat a woman today
- throw a child cross a room
- are the little girl's pants in your pocket
- did you hurt a woman today
- I have to ask these obscene questions
- I must know you see
- the authorities require us to
- establish
- immediate cause
- every three minutes
- every five minutes
- every ten minutes
- every day