Cat & Mouse Act Poem by Stephen Giles

Cat & Mouse Act

The authorities dared not let the women die, so would
release them, sometimes half-dead, to be re-arrested
as soon as they were judged fit. ETHEL SMYTH

And if we eat nothing, we are bitches
of the first rank. Worse, because we
know right from wrong, because we

are neither stupid nor blind. What we
know is this world of men. How it
flinches from the things we might do

with enough of us onside.
Think of our sisters, burnt as witches
because they had tongues

and a mind of their own.
Now we are all brazen. Reach out
and feel our flesh, it might sizzle.

Little woman, little lady, enough!
Look at what we have grown up into.
How we seep into everything.

Touch everything.