
Matadora
Did you think I would run?
I can admire your strength
without feeling weak.
You are only hide and bone,
after all. A frame
to embroider with symbols
and emblems, a small death
to conquer again.
Shall I garland your neck
with blood roses? Come,
kneel at my feet, fetish.
You are vessel, you are chair
for me to straddle,
yes, you are drum.
Now come.
O-kay, that’s another odd one. And very definitely only a preliminary sketch of a draft. (Damn you, NaPoWriMo, and your insatiable appetite!)
It was triggered by the Read Write Prompt for day 23: Put on another (cowboy) hat. One of the examples given was a mother-matador, and for some reason it just stuck in my head.
Mythologically speaking, women don’t fare terribly well where bulls are concerned. And there’s a poem I really enjoy by Christiania Whitehead, called “The Unicorn is a Symbol of Virginity“, which does a nice job of inverting the usual virgin/unicorn thing. Somehow it just seemed to chime with the idea of a female matador, especially after I did some research on female bullfighters.
I’m going to come back to this one.
Mostly, this reads as if it is the matador speaking, but in parts I wondered if it might be the bull. Perhaps it works both ways
There is much here, an awesome metaphor for the man woman interaction…you are so on the right track with this one, perhaps it is a longer poem in the making…your poem with that image of the female matador in surrender (in control – unconquerable…) is incredible…and could be considered complete just the way it is.
Thank You
Poet Man