My hips are a desk. From my ears hang chains of paper clips. Rubber bands form my hair. My breasts are wells of mimeograph ink. My feet bear casters. Buzz. Click. My head is a badly organized file. My head is a switchboard where crossed lines crackle. My head is a wastebasket of worn ideas. Press my fingers and in my eyes appear credit and debit. Zing. Tinkle. My navel is a reject button. From my mouth issue canceled reams. Swollen, heavy, rectangular I am about to be delivered of a baby xerox machine. File me under W because I wonce was a woman.
—Marge Piercy
Rights & Access
“The secretary chant” from CIRCLES ON THE WATER by Marge Piercy, copyright © 1982 by Middlemarsh, Inc.
Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
All rights reserved.
-
Marge Piercy
Marge Piercy (1936- ) is the author of 19 poetry collections, including Made in Detroit (2015). Educated at the University of Michigan and Northwestern University, she is active in antiwar, feminist, and environmental causes.