GHAZAL FOR THE WOMEN OF AFGHANISTAN

by Jackie Fox

The bearded old men stop at nothing to stifle the women.

Keeping them hidden will solve the temptation of women.

Oh, they talked through their turbans like nothing would change

for lives that had blossomed like lilies—the women. 

The women knew better. The cascade of workplace and school

slammed tight against the menace of girls and danger of women.

Vanished from work, school and public movement without a male—

this would seem sufficient erasure of women.

But nothing is ever enough for the old zealots, who want only

to keep their coarse sandals planted on the necks of women.

So now—of course and at last—the beauty salons, 

last refuge for most and livelihood for some of the women.

Not enough to endure the hijab or burka and forego makeup in public.

Even the most private pleasures must be denied to women.

And to those of us in the West with our patented knee-jerk shock—

We tried to warn you, whisper the women.

Jackie Fox lives and writes in Omaha, Nebraska. Her work has appeared in Rattle, The Bellevue Literary Review, Tar River Poetry, Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry, The Untidy Season: An Anthology of Nebraska Women Poets, and numerous other journals and anthologies

Tweet