Casting Stones

Joan Miro, "Person Throwing a Stone at a Bird" (1926)

We shouted out
'We've got her! Here she is!
It's her all right '.
We caught her.
There she was -

A decent-looking woman, you'd have said,
(They often are)
Beautiful, but dead scared,
Tousled - we roughed her up
A little, nothing much

And not the first time
By any means
She'd felt men's hands
Greedy over her body -
But ours were virtuous,
Of course.

And if our fingers bruised
Her shuddering skin,
These were love-bites, compared
To the hail of kisses of stone,
The last assault
And battery, frigid rape,
To come
Of right.

For justice must be done
Specially when
It tastes so good.

And then - this guru,
Preacher, God-merchant, God-knows-what -
Spoilt the whole thing,
Speaking to her
(Should never speak to them)
Squatting on the ground - her level,
Writing in the dust
Something we couldn't read.
And saw in her
Something we couldn't see
At least until
He turned his eyes on us,
Her eyes on us,
Our eyes upon ourselves.

We walked away
Still holding stones
That we may throw
Another day
Given the urge.

- Elma Mitchell, "A Stone's Throw"