by Carol Smallwood
On the way back from the annual medical association dinner Cal said,
"Johnson's still having women say he does things when they're under.
He's not keeping quiet and is bragging about it instead."
"That's awful! Can't your association do something before it spreads?"
I asked. Cal replied, "His lawyers see what women say is pushed under
and they're all called hysterical or at best just mislead."
Cal continued, "We don't want to set a precedent that can't be shed.
How'd you like some hysterical woman accusing me--you want his number?
You don't agree with him being called the boy wonder?"
But I couldn't forget what Cal said, get it out of my head,
that rape didn't encumber--
accept what he said: "They'll end up with children better bred."
Carol Smallwood co-edited (Molly Peacock, foreword) Women on Poetry: Tips on Writing, Teaching and Publishing by Successful Women Poets (McFarland, 2012); Women Writing on Family: Tips on Writing, Teaching and Publishing (Key Publishing House, 2012); Compartments: Poems on Nature, Femininity, and Other Realms (Anaphora Literary Press, 2011) received a Pushcart nomination.
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