BRANKS

by Julie Steiner

Images of Epstein victims as depicted in Feb. 8, 2026, Super Bowl ad. Image of branks from an oil painting by John Willie, pseudonym for John Alexander Scott Coutts, for Bizarre, a sadomasochism magazine published 1946–1959. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Brank/branks: A device formerly used to punish women judged to be noisy and quarrelsome, consisting of an iron curb for the tongue, held in place by a frame around the head. Also called a scold’s bridle.


You have to tell the truth, but tell it slant.
To lay it bare’s unbearable. You’ve tried.
You’d like to leave it buried, but you can’t.

Too few have cared to hear a woman rant
since Homer (“Sing, O Muse, of anger”) died.
You have to tell the truth; but tell it slant,

since, frankly, even Keats would have to grant
this truth’s no beauty. This, you’ve had to hide.
You’d like to leave it buried. But you can’t,

so Dickinson’s advice is relevant.
She’ll be your Virgil, your inferno-guide.
You have to “Tell [...] the truth, but tell it slant— ”

“Tell all the truth.” But don’t get adamant,
“Or every man be blind—,” she qualified.
You’d like to leave it bare. (Read: But you can’t.)

Loud girls get label-gagged: once, Termagant,

Virago, Shrew; now, Bitch. Take that in stride.

(You have, to tell the truth.) But tell it—slant

or no—you must. Omit the bitter. Scant
the pathos. Cut the caustic. Snip the snide.
(You’d like to leave it, buried.) But you can’t

accuse the rich of rape, or lawyers chant,

“No, he’s the victim! She’s a slut who lied.”

You have to tell the truth, but tell it slant.
You’d like to leave it buried. But you can’t.

Julie Steiner is a pseudonym in San Diego, California. Besides The New Verse News, recent venues in which Julie's poetry has appeared include the Ekphrastic Review, Light, Lighten Up Online, and Snakeskin. See more on her Substack, Off-Piste on Mount Parnassus.