Confetti

What's lost after the parade is

What's lost by girls of a certain age

How short the girl's life

How long the woman's

Quiet yawning rage

While the blaring band of life swings by

Our celebrations taste like iron on the tongue

Transitions hard fought and hard won

Requiring sacrifice at the altar:

Bleeding

Weeping

Becoming and

Losing the name we call ourselves.

And yet a maiden's name is her father's

And on it goes forever

As long as we can remember

Medusa crushed beneath the heel

Helen requisitioned

Joan staked

Lucretia raped

And you, too

And me, too

Verbiage and violence done to us on us at us around us for us

Women's eyes are well-adjusted to the past:

A shade of red living in their memory proves they lived.

Perhaps seeing this carnival color

faded into a more palatable hue

in the wilted confetti strewn in late spring snow

they wonder what's over and who won,

or if these are the versions of themselves they could've become.