The girls school girls—were they were dressed to impress
the boys school boys at the weekend parties on your calendar?
Another beer down the hatch, another punch bowl to spike, another girl to access,
another notch on your belt, another to-do checked off of your calendar.
The boys lined up in trousers and ties, dressed for success—
a train of future executives and judges with no time on their calendars.
Punch-drunk, literally, those girls that you pressed
against you—funny, their names don’t appear on your calendar.
One says you forcibly groped, shifted her dress:
unmentionables unmentioned on your calendar.
Another says luckily she had emergency egress
before more harm could be done. She kept an emotional calendar.
The women who’ve come forward, their memories repressed
years, decades—did they keep calendars? (And how were they dressed?)
The parties, the drinks, the boys, their aggressions—details from all three coalesce,
details corroborated, at least, in part, by your calendar.
They’ve experienced PTSD for decades, traumatic duress
while you climbed the ladder, made appointments on your calendar.
A limited investigation, limited witnesses addressed
within a limited scope—the vote already fixed on the calendar.
Women know how it goes. #metoo. #whyIneverreported. We persist, nevertheless.
Take it on oath: November 6 circled in red,
circled in red, circled in red
on our calendars.
READ MORE
Building strength and resilience after a sexual assault: What works [NPR]
Kathleen Nalley is the author of the full-length prose poetry collection, Gutterflower (winner of the Bryant-Lisembee Prize from Red Paint Hill Press), as well as the poetry chapbooks Nesting Doll (winner of the SC Poetry Initiative Prize) and American Sycamore (Finishing Line Press). She resides in the Upstate of S.C.
Image via Brett Kavanaugh to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
