Marge Piercy
Poet, novelist, and essayist Marge Piercy was born in Detroit, Michigan, on March 31, 1936. She won a scholarship to the University of Michigan and was the first member of her family to attend college. She subsequently earned a master's degree from Northwestern University. Piercy is dedicated to exploring the interstices of ideology and aesthetics by way of Marxist, feminist, and environmentalist strains of thought. Piercy lives with her husband, writer Ira Wood, in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. Source
The friend
We sat across the table.
he said, cut off your hands.
they are always poking at things.
they might touch me.
I said yes.
Food grew cold on the table.
he said, burn your body.
it is not clean and smells like [ ].
it rubs my mind sore.
I said yes.
I love you, I said.
That’s very nice, he said
I like to be loved,
that makes me happy.
Have you cut off your hands yet?
Published:
1968
Length:
Shorty
Literary Movements:
Contemporary
Anthology Years:
2024
Themes:
Love & Relationships
Womanhood
Literary Devices:
Alliteration
the repetition of the same letter or sound at the beginning of words appearing in succession
Repetition
a recurrence of the same word or phrase two or more times
Rhetorical Question
a question asked for effect, not necessarily to be answered