Please
Mary McCarthy
Don’t patronize
don’t tell me there are no rules
when I seem to have broken
most of them, enough to think
it would be wise to post a sign
“Rocks Falling,” “No Guard Rails,”
I’ve kept both fire and laughter
close to hand, could smell
your lies before I saw you
rejoiced in kicking over buckets
of white paint, smashing glass,
defying regulations that kept
things too neat and civilized–
More than once I’ve been stopped,
locked up, confined, limited
to a small space without air
or sharp objects able to cut
cloth or rope or flesh-
all the signatures of prison
holding me back from breaking
all those nameless […]