To celebrate National Poetry Month, The Poetry Box is sharing a Poem-of-the-Day, selected from various anthologies and individual poet collections that we have published over the years.
Please enjoy today’s selection: “Before They Reheat the Rod” by Penelope Scambly Schott, which appears in Of Course, I’m a Feminist!
Before They Reheat the Rod
In the ancient city, they heated iron rods
and blinded all the daughters.
Then they told the daughters Every man
is brave and beautiful.
In that city, they blessed the girls’ hands
and set them to spin in the dark.
Behind bronze gates, the daughters sang
the hymns almost as instructed,
but they sang in a language understood
only by birds of prey.
Listen. The wings of the blind daughters
summoned a wild sirocco wind
so that sand dunes buried the ancient city.
What endures now is the song.
Do you know it?
Whisper the words in your daughter’s ear.
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