Women's Anger by Diane Bracuk

I.

It needs to be scooped out,

measured into containers

like flour, salt

and sugar in the cow-shaped bowl

with the yellow apron,

our sweetest wedding present,

benign, bovine eyes unblinking

every time you call me a “Dumb Cow!”

All have their lids on tight, they contain

the fury rising inside me

like a prairie dust storm,

coating my eyes and mouth,

making a paste that seals them shut

as I’m blown into oblivion.

Dumb cow!

Please, scoop a half cup of rage out of me right now,

mix it, roll it, bake it,

into something good.

II.

Sometimes rage

boils up,

like homemade raspberry jam, sticking

to the pot, stove, elements,

hardening to a thick crust you can’t quite scrub off.

and when you turn on the burner two weeks later,

a tiny seed pops.

Diane Bracuk is an award-winning Toronto writer whose work has been published in leading literary and mainstream magazines. Her story "Doughnut Eaters" won the 2015 PRISM international creative non-fiction award. She is the author of the short story collection, Middle-Aged Boys & Girls (Guernica Editions).