When a student wrote that I failed
to note a trigger warning
for the assault
in “Leda and the Swan,”
a wire tripped inside,
and violets on the quad
boomed skyward in sally:
Did we insult real women
in calling that rape?
Wasn’t the perp a swan,
a myth beneath
ancient paint and stone,
and poor naked Leda
a means, a metaphor,
handmaid of history,
helpless to birth beauty,
war upon war or peace—
whatever might come
of men?
 
And yet, as half the states finger
triggers, training a long-necked,
indifferent beak
on students and teachers,
daughters and mothers
still forced to engender
broken walls, barbed wire,
dropping us back
to a medieval future,
I wonder if the first violation
isn’t to be made vessel
to another’s will?