The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Tue 5/12/2009)

Virginitiphobia

         — The fear of rape.


They took her out to the field in a new black truck
that smelled like apples and the denim

of a young man’s thigh. They turned the engine off
but left the radio on, the headlights lighting

the woods to the west, toward the mountains, then
to California. They laid her down

and tied her hands over her head with field-grass.
She could have pulled them free, no problem,

ripped the roots right out of that soft dark dirt.
They told her she was beautiful.

They took off their shirts. She saw the black of their arms
backlit in gold by the truck’s headlights.

One of them started to crack a joke, but stopped
halfway in. They took off her shoes

and touched her ankles, but only barely. She waited
for them to lift the hem of her skirt

but they were scared and it was cold out there.
She arched her back and held her breath,

eyes closed, but they kept saying they were sorry.
She told them to shut the fuck up, and if

they started to cry, she’d kill them and take the truck
and no one in town would ever know.

While they were kicking off their jeans, so slowly,
she listened to the radio

and the cicadas whirring like the circular saws
in the high school shop, and a distant hum

that might have been a train if any trains
still ran anywhere nearby.

It must have been a plane somewhere way up
overhead, though she couldn’t tell

because it was cloudy and dark, which bothered her;
she’d wanted them to see her face

moonlit and cold, staring up as they did it,
impossible to ever forget.

Patrick Ryan Frank

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Patrick Ryan Frank studied poetry at Northwestern University and Boston University. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Carolina Quarterly, River Styx, and other publications. He is the recipient of an Artist Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and two Writing Fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

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:hi:

RL

:hi:

:hi:

RL

I guess this is supposed to be the notion of rape turned on its head, because the female character seems to be in charge. But (call me crazy!) I just can't quite buy it.

Well-written, though. :shrug:

:hi:

unless we're supposed to be believing it's the male characters afraid of rape, and I'm not buying that either.

:hi:

Rape is a crime of violence.

This poem doesn't seem very violent.

:shrug:

RL

I might be naive, but a woman, two men, and a pickup truck in the middle of nowhere at night sure isn't something I'd set up for myself. (Oh darn these guys, they're scared to fantasy-rape me!)

Again, the guy seems like a good writer. But I want to slap him.

I would love to hear him discuss this poem...

I did find his email :D

RL

:shrug:

RL

:train:

very well done.

:donut: :hi:

:hi:

RL

The imagery just blows me away...

The emotions too...

Thanks, Retro...


Wish me luck tonight; it's the open mic for my local poetry group.

:hi:

:hi:

RL