Marge Piercy (1936-)
Always unsuitable
1She wore little teeth of pearls around her neck.
2They were grinning politely and evenly at me.
3Unsuitable they smirked. It is true
4I look a stuffed turkey in a suit. Breasts
5too big for the silhouette. She knew
6at once that we had sex, lots of it
7as if I had strolled into her diningroom
8in a dirty negligee smelling gamy
9smelling fishy and sporting a strawberry
10on my neck. I could never charm
11the mothers, although the fathers ogled
12me. I was exactly what mothers had warned
13their sons against. I was quicksand
14I was trouble in the afternoon. I was
15the alley cat you don't bring home.
16I was the dirty book you don't leave out
17for your mother to see. I was the center-
18fold you masturbate with then discard.
19Where I came from, the nights I had wandered
20and survived, scared them, and where
21I would go they never imagined.
22Ah, what you wanted for your sons
23were little ladies hatched from the eggs
24of pearls like pink and silver lizards
25cool, well behaved and impervious
26to desire and weather alike. Mostly
27that's who they married and left.
28Oh, mamas, I would have been your friend.
29I would have cooked for you and held you.
30I might have rattled the windows
31of your sorry marriages, but I would
32have loved you better than you know
33how to love yourselves, bitter sisters.
Copyright 1999 Early Grrrl: the Early Poems of Marge Piercy Leapfrog Press
Notes
1] This is the last poem in the book, and in a section entitled "Uncollected Poems: poems spanning several decades."
9] strawberry: a bruise or sore (from kissing or sucking).
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
This poem cannot be published anywhere without the written consent of Marge Piercy, Leapfrog Press or Knopf permissions department.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: © Marge Piercy. Early Grrrl: the Early Poems of Marge Piercy (Wellfleet, Mass.: Leapfrog Press, 1999): 154-55. PS 3566 .I4E18 1999 Robarts Library
First publication date:
1999
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 2000.
Recent editing: 2:2002/4/11
Form: triplets
Rhyme: unrhyming
Other poems by Marge Piercy
