Ophelia, one of the only two female characters in Shakespeare’s Hamlet,
climbed a willow tree and drowned when its branches broke,
sending her into the brook below.
Joan of Arc led several fiery sieges throughout the war-torn lands
of France and England, wounded by stones and arrows
until her death by being burned at the stake.
Anastasia Romanov, the grand duchess of the last sovereign of imperial Russia,
was executed by members of the Bolshevik secret police,
her body thrown among her family’s into a mass grave.
Desdemona is murdered by Othello
as he pulls away the last threads of her breath,
ignoring her pleas for mercy,
only to be informed that Iago had lied about her adultery.
Marilyn Monroe passed away from an overdose,
remembered forever as a sex symbol instead of a person.
Aaliyah went down in a burning flame crash,
but unlike a phoenix remained in the ashes,
the product of an unlicensed pilot with drugs in his system.
Where are all the women? my grandfather asks as he reads
about the presidential elections.
Where are all the women? my poetry professor asks
as he hands out anthologies of the world’s most well-known poets.
Where are all the women? the lawyer in the courtroom asks
as he surveys the litany of male district attorneys.
All across the world, coroners answer. Detectives, police officers,
widowers, morticians, emergency responders at crime scenes.
theartofmadeline
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