Battered Women 2

Dear Mouse, I have friends who were battered. So abused that they are no longer capable of leading normal lives. One died in the hospital, DOA, the second has made a world of her own and the third is into hiding with her only daughter. They are young except for the woman who died. Before I go into stories of these women, let me reproduce a poem by -Carol Geneya Kaplan Today another woman died and not on a foreign field and not with a rifle strapped to her back, and not with a large defense of tanks rumbling and rolling behind her. She died without CNN covering her war. She died without talk of intelligent bombs and strategic targets The target was simply her face, her back her pregnant belly. The target was her precious flesh that was once composed like music in her mother’s body and sung in the anthem of birth. The target was this life that had lived its own dear wildness, had been loved and not loved, had danced and not danced. A life like yours or mine that had stumbled up from a beginning and had learned to walk and had learned to read. and had learned to sing. Another woman died today. not far from where you live; Just there, next door where the tall light falls across the pavement. Just there, a few steps away where you’ve often heard shouting, Another woman died today. She was the same girl her mother used to kiss; the same child you dreamed beside in school. The same baby her parents walked in the night with and listened and listened and listened For her cries even while they slept. And someone has confused his rage with this woman’s only life. The CAT