I am the Widow, See Me

Last night watching the 1964 movie Zorba the Greek, I turned it off when the Widow was murdered and wrote this poem.

I am the Widow in a story told by men.
It is their story, I am their widow.
They view women in their lives
as extras in their films. They
are mankind, actors, real.

I am the Widow, fierce and content
who doesn’t belong to any of them.
An affront! And worse,
I don’t desire them.
I am the Widow who,
in a culture made by men,
has her own desires.

A woman with her own desires
in a story told by men
lives cast out and can be stoned,
deserves to have her throat sliced
and silenced by a cowardly mob.

I am the Widow in a story told by men
on a planet ruled by men,
but not much longer. From the ground
outside the church where I lie bleeding,
I am rising. In the story told by men,
the end is changing. I am turning
to the man who holds the knife.
And he sees the life that’s in me,
he sees with shock I am as real as he.
He sees with fear he cannot kill me.

I am turning to the tellers of the stories
to make my throat whole and tell my own.
I am the woman in a story told by woman.
I am the Widow and the Magdalen,
the one the men could never see
as whole unto ourselves,
and I am rising, turning,
I am acting, telling, making my own tale.
I am the Widow, see me.

©Susa Silvermarie 2018