A Letter to the Substitute

How can you see through the fog and the lies that surround your scarf You told one student he was going to Hell and another she was not feminine enough you told me that women have it easy just get married, you insist all problems disappear like the value of progress in your hating mind We marched chanted picketed went on strike Yet the law as well as popular opinion tells me we lost Every tear shed every speech given every metaphorical bra burned every literal life lost Reduced to smoke in the course of a conversation. "Feminazi!" "Man-hater!" I did not ask your opinion. Keep away, voice of yesterday, I lift my soul to tomorrow, and hope the work of the past will stick