Old Poem: A Woman Who Finds Herself Stronger Than She Wishes

In contrast, I don't consider this one of my stronger poems, but it was accepted into the Residential College Writers' 1991 publication Still Life with Fruit along with two other poems.  I believe I was one of the more successful RC writers who didn't actually come up through the RC system (I lived over in South Quad instead).  I brought a portfolio of my stuff to Ken Mikolowski and he let me into his poetry writing class (this probably was my sophomore year).  I took at least one and maybe two independent study classes with him to keep working on my poetry.  I also joined up with the RC Writers for a bi-monthly poetry workshop.  The high point was my junior year when I submitted some material for a dramatic "happening" called Small Ceremonies.  Not only were a number of my poems used but I joined the cast (and even played a bit of saxophone on stage).   However, I wasn't involved at all on the publication side.  Instead, I was the managing editor of The Barbaric Yawp, though I resigned in a fit of pique my senior year when I was accused of publishing my own stuff and that of my friends.  The Yawp really used a blind submittal process, and I never once published any of my own work, as tempting as that was.  I suspect Still Life with Fruit was quasi-blind, but given that so many of the submittals had been workshopped through the RC Writers, it probably wasn't that much of a surprise who the writers actually were to the selection committee.  In any case, I think I had tried to submit pieces that I hadn't workshopped with them.  I vaguely recall that this poem in particular was a surprise to some of them, specifically that it had been written by a male writer.

A Woman Who Finds Herself Stronger Than She Wishes

Hands grasp any object 
   that crosses her desk 
She could snap it in half 
She waits
   as she has always waited 
Her mother has called her 
   one too many times 
The next call has to be the last
She pushes all the paper off the desk 
Drops the pens back in the drawer 
Sips coffee
Leaves the office
Never comes back.

Thematically, this is fairly similar to a short play I wrote about two female office workers and their travails, though this is more about internal stress (and strength).  Maybe there is more in there (about myself) than I realized at the time in terms of my willingness to chuck it all when I find situations going south (particularly if my honor has been impugned and even moreso if my expertise is being undermined).