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Monday, October 01, 2018

ON THE DISAPPEARANCE OF RACHEL MITCHELL FROM THE KAVANAUGH HEARING, SEPTEMBER 27, 2018

by Patty Mosco Holloway




Is she still missing?
Another woman tossed away today,
only this time, not in a bedroom behind a locked door
with music blaring to drown out her cries.
This time it happened on national tv.
She just disappeared. Or was disappeared.
Never came back to question his honor,
this "lady assistant," expert prosecuting attorney,
hired by Republican Senators
to do their dirty work,
to make them look good
or at least, not so bad.
Behind her skirts they lurked
as she questioned the woman in question.
The  'Merican Publik never got to see
how they'd look, how they'd sound
grilling a "female" victim of sexual assault.

When they didn't like how the law-lady acted,
they threw her away,
took away her voice
muscled for the mic
outshouting each other,
sneering, jeering, puffing out chests,
doing the man-dance:
Who could be fiercest defending their boy?

They were no better than Kavanaugh's frat boys
"Finding," "Fucking," "Forgetting"
the girls they forced down onto beds
or stood in line to train rape
at their good ole "boys-will-be-boys-I-like-beer-
              I-liked-it-then-I-like-it-now" parties.

No, the Republican Senators never threw Ms. Mitchell down
under them onto a bed—they just used her awhile
then judged her useless,
took away her voice, tossed her away.
They might as well have tied her up in that chair
at the Hearing and stuck Kavanaugh's calendar into her mouth.
They made her invisible, shoved past her chair,
jockeying, ranting to rescue their boy.
Has anyone seen her?


Editor’s Note: “The outside prosecutor Senate Republicans [Rachel Mitchell] hired to lead the questioning in last week’s hearing about the sexual assault allegations against Brett M. Kavanaugh is arguing in a new memo why she would not bring criminal charges against the Supreme Court nominee. . . . Mitchell, whom GOP senators selected to handle the questioning in last week’s hearing with Ford and Kavanaugh, is a registered Republican who is chief of the special victims division of the Maricopa County attorney’s office in Phoenix. Although she asked Ford all of the questions posed by Republican senators, she asked Kavanaugh only two rounds of questions until GOP senators began speaking again." —The Washington Post, September 30, 2018


Patty Mosco Holloway is a writing teacher in Denver, Colorado. Her poems have appeared before in TheNewVerse.News and in Ekphrastic Review.