BUTTERFLY CATCHER
In the Sixties
Nabokov switchedfrom ink to eraser-
topped pencilon index cards a box
of cards for Ada a boxof cards for dreams
whose “curious features”include “erotic tenderness
and heart-rending enchantment”in one draft
he traded “stillness and heat”for “silence, a burning”
so picture:Vladimir seated
at the trunk of a treea spring day
at Wellesley wherehe marvels at his students
and their cable-knit socksthe way each elastic
grips without bindingjust below
the knee so exquisitean application of pressure
that when said sockis slowly
peeled offthe skin shows
no trace at all
— Tina Cane
White, Straight Male in a “Feminist’s” World
By
John Maszka
Once again, she ignores me—calling on everyone else, just not me.
She waits for someone else to speak…Anyone at all; as long as they’re female or gay or a different color than me. Even when she acknowledges me, she tells me to wait and then never allows me to speak.
I don’t know why I even try.
I’m invisible and yet still, she targets me with isolation.
She’s obviously very angry,
Her passive-aggression gives her away.
“Did you have your hand up?” She asks the others but never me.
“Do you have something to add?” Words I’ll never hear.
Not here anyway.
My opinion is not welcome.
My offense has nothing to do with what I’ve done, and everything to do with what I am.
I’m a white male—
And heterosexual too!
I might as well be a leper!
“Unclean!”
Ostracized by the “feminist” who claims to champion the unempowered;
but she uses her position of power to oppress and silence.
Her thin veil of hypocrisy, yellow like her teeth, barely conceals her cowardice.
Are you the “son of a Swan?”
or the abandoned offspring of a harpy?
The goddess Diana resents your name.
You preach about ethics, but look what you do.
You’re not a feminist, you’re a liar—and the worst kind…
Pretending to be a victim as you wipe the blood from your lips.