The Crone's Lament
It was a pain in the ass. Most inconvenient. that the men we loved, the father of our children would go on to die in thier late sixties or seventies and leave us to ourselves, alone for a good couple of decades, until death would come out of the sheer weariness of boredom. Them and their duty-bound, weak-hearted, often alcohol-accelatered deaths - we've just had enough of our bloody stout hearts that refuse to succumb to all we've been through.
We did the childbearing, for the love of god. We did the housework till our feet could take it no more, and yet found enough grace to be pleasant enough in their beds. Warm their officious breadwinning bones over which the fat of the dinner we painstakingly cooked would be spreading itself into their viscera, enlarging their bellies and thickening their thighs so much their manhood was often lost in the folds of animal flesh. And then, we would lie splayed, sometimes interested sometimes thinking wearily about how early we had to wake up the next day. Thinking about how pleasant it would be to just lie in a bit and sleep after the sun had risen. Waking before dawn is exhausting business. But we're getting ahead of ourselves here. Let's go back to the rocking back and forth that's going on between our legs .They just roll over us and enter. Hitch the petticoat and get on with it. Some nights are filled with sweet whispers. Of course. what do you think of our husbands, huh? But a lot of them would be perfunctory. Perfunctory that would eventually lead to nine months of borderline resentment from them, laced of course with paternal pride and an extra congratulatory puffing out of the chest, a reconfirmation of his virility.
Year upon year of the same exercise. Of having our bodies cleave open to deliver their offspring. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Wait, Baby #9 was still born - our hearts cleaved open, forming scar tissue and depending, for sometime, on the muscle memory of loving. Until we once again become full moons of fertility and life giving. Until once again the spring of motherhood turns our bodies into a garden of nourishment. Our purpose refulfilled. Sometimes Eleven. Often times Twelve. Until the womb caves in on itself. And we move to separate bedrooms.
All this, and they get to make the pretty corpse. The "dearly" departed. They get the tears. The gushing obituaries. the shake of head at the injustice of taken away too soon. While we wait and waste away. We become ghosts long before we're dead. we get they "she's in a better place", and the guilt-twinged relief. Or is it the relief-tinged guilt. We get the "freeing up of the room" in the house. we become a distant memory even before our memory has failed us. We get visitors less often than their dead, rotting bodies under the ground. Nobody brings us flowers or gifts. I tell you, it's a big, fat pain in the ass.
