Desert Women

We women get a sense of who we are
and how we look and what affect we have on men
by what we see there on the faces,
in the eyes of those we love the most
and sometimes what we see convinces us
that we are beautiful and molten sex
and freckled marble columns full of fire
and sometimes what we see is like a sudden
gasp of wintry air that hurts the lungs and
down deep inside our bellies and
we promise that we'll never feel that way again,
we love ourselves too much, we'll hide out in
the desert till we hear the adoration once again.

Hosanna in the highest. Blest is she who comes.

Sometimes the wait is brief.
Sometimes it never ends,
but always, it is better than a glimpse,
the faintest glimpse,
of disappointment.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

Shake Them Up

Destiny Souza, age 15, got into a guy's car
outside a water park in Stuart, FL with her
friend Kiera Medina, also 15. They
were prostituted and given drugs
for a week; Medina was
run over and is in the hospital.
Destiny has now run away
from a holding facility,
having expressed to her mother
that she wished it had been her
who was run over. Pray for her.

I'd like to shake them,
slap them,
send them to their rooms
without their suppers

or their phones.

Shave their hair off
like they did to women
who collaborated with
the enemy in France, and
buy their clothes
for several years
from Goodwill,
yard sales,
thrift stores, better yet,
they have to make them
for themselves.

The cost for looking.
Heartache, worry,
mothers' eyes that cut this way
and that until the Bad Guy's
caught, he might be out there,
might be looking for another
victim.

He blew a kiss,
they got into the car,
he didn't make them.
What he made them do
the next day and the next,
that's punishment and more,
and I am sorry, anguished
at their suffering

a little bitter too.

I wanted them to be
a cautionary tale.
Don't wander off!
More safety, see, in numbers,
just be Good and Sweet
and always look both ways
before you cross.

But they weren't good
and they weren't sweet
and though they bit off
more than they could chew
and though, as children, couldn't
fully realize the consequence
of such stupidity, I think of
mothers weeping in the night
in fear of what was going on,
and now they weep because

they want to blame it all on him,
and Can't
Quite
Do it
and if
he is not the only one to blame
then maybe they are guilty too.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015

No Birkenstocks

I want to write for them
my name on their slick pages
every one delicious with words
photographs in black and white
because that's just how they roll
but I don't have an MFA
or spend my summers at retreats
no pet whose name would make
my little bio oh so quaint and clever
I don't live in a loft in Mass or
in Manhattan with my partner
(better yet a farm)
don't own a pair of Birkenstocks
and so my chances may be slim



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015