A Sonnet to Mad Men with Apologies to the Woman Poet (Who Requires No Definition)
By Kathy Jacobs
How do you love me let me count your ways
With an uppercut, a kidney jab, a backhand slap
Hair by the roots, jammed to a barricade, slugged
To the ground, to the depth your fist can reach
Freely, as men are left to do; purely, from jealousy and spite
With passion driven by monstrous ego, with hands and words
and knives and knees and covetousness of my body,
my choice, my dignity, my liberty, my land
With boots and bullets, tanks and airstrikes, with need
to prove your dominance, your excuses, your entitled rage
On court benches and my kitchen floor, in senate chambers
and through cities’ streets, on every step and stage
Seizing my smiles, my pleas, my breath
Despite all tears I’ll love you better after death
Kathy Jacobs' work has been published in SWWIM Every Day: Sing the Body, Plainsongs, The Comstock Review, Finelines, and anthologies by the Nebraska Writers Group, including How It Looks from Here: Poetry from the Plains.
**We do our best to preserve the integrity of each poem; however, due to programming limitations, some poems may read differently on a mobile phone and in certain browsers. For best viewing, use Chrome on a desktop/laptop.