In the Bride Market
I am afraid to shed tears,
lest hot and heavy
they roll down and singe
the skin off my face.
The mirror has always seen my face;
my smile form religiously between my lips
at the slightest command.
What if I become lipless?
What if the flames from my burning vision
burn my eyelids?
Maybe the bones of my cheeks
so carefully painted will tell
the truthful tales of our age old agony,
hidden for centuries
in the urn of silence and rightness.
I am afraid to cry.
Let them look at me
adorned in finery-
from hair to neck; to breast; to waist
down to the little of my toes.
Let their gaze, hungry as ever,
circle around me and weigh me
putting me against Solomon's gold.
I am to be given away
with the harvest and the gold,
a fetish in the scriptures, a mute slave
in the bride mart.
Yet, dry-eyed, I stifle my woes.
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Submitted on July 21, 2017
Modified on April 24, 2023
- 47 sec read
- 5 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABXC CXXAXXXXBXXX BBXDXBEXEXXD |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 787 |
Words | 158 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 12, 12 |
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"In the Bride Market" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 14 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/75245/in-the-bride-market>.
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