Written by the victor,
history’s fire will make
a villain of us all
for blood is not meant
for ornamentation
not even in righteous
condemnation and
especially not in
sacrificial delight.

Dented and hewn
when the battle concludes
our armour will be
our coffins and swords
our burial shrouds.

We monsters are
battleforged, crafted
to destroy a systemic
plague bent on feminine
annihilation and when
treaties are drawn
and norms reconstructed
our obsolescence
will require we
loose our ichor
no more.

Tamara Fricke is the 2010 co-winner of the Gertrude Claytor Award of the Academy of American Poets and is previously published by The Lyon Review, Meat for Tea, Attack Bear Press Poetry Vending Machine, Whisper and the Roar, We Will Not Be Silenced, and has been included in a number of compilations.  Her poetry chapbook Our Requiem was released in 2014.  She lives in Springfield, MA, with an ungrateful cat, where she writes grants professionally.