Choiceless Villanelle (Redux)

How fragile — heart, brain, womb, sinew, and bone.
How easily bodies, and dreams, can die.
A woman’s safest when she is alone.

Murderer, in the name of Christ atone!
Protesters raise bloodstained dolls up high.
Soreness in heart, brain, womb, sinew, and bone.

Preyed upon as maiden, scorned as crone.
Carved up by men’s gaze to breast and thigh,
a woman’s safest when she is alone.

Listen! How the stunted daughters groan
from laws that quell, relationships that tie
the heart, control brain, womb, sinew, and bone.

Who’ll reap? The poisoned seeds are being sown.
Hair rearranged by wind, draped in the sky —
a woman’s safest when she is alone.

Unless her words and organs are her own,
liberty for all’s a flag-wrapped lie.
Unguarded heart, brain, womb, sinew, and bone.
A woman’s safest when she is alone.