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          I HANG ON YOUR WALL
          by Lori Von Colln

          My body was never my own
          as far as I can remember
          as far back as cotton print dresses
          boys lifted for peeks
          at what they gathered already
          they owned. Adults only
          laughed--what's the harm

          No harm since it isn't my body
          since boys are free to feel and snap
          that strap signaling breasts and more
          though I am hoping for plates of armor,
          blades of steel, the words to say
          what's mine.

          Cupping a breast, copping a feel,
          tell me where to begin
          if not in the very pore
          and hair of my skin,
          call my body your own,
          to bear child, to suck cock,
          to work or not, what words
          to speak, when where how
          in this world you have cut out.

          My virgin hole, governed
          by your law, hangs on your wall,
          with my womb, cunt, breasts--
          you can see I am resilient
          for still saying my.

          I stand in your prized herd--
          kept, bored, untouched, unsoiled,
          'though it is you who do all
          the soiling, hands of tar and feather,
          grunt, shape, thrust, come come come
          and we just lie there or you,
          emaciated, in child's blood.