Dangerous Expensive Principles

The Day I Can Stop Shouting

When women can dress like male birds
nondescript, brown but not get overlooked;
when gender has no on/off switch
in brooding shadow’s minds;
when what’s done to us in private
is unearthed by pooled sunlight.

When you stop taking pleasure away
with a knife, needle or attitude;
when we’re no longer silenced,
small spaces are made for us to speak;
when sex isn’t a commodity controlled
by men but a woman’s gift.

When all us brown ones are paid
and valued as you are for a job;
when you don’t think of anyone as second
rate or hand or less in any way;
when you look at me and see and sense
exactly what I'd like to feel about you.

I will gladly gentle my voice
that day or, given what you call
my dangerous, expensive principles,
my reckless need to make you change
I suspect my voice will soften completely
the day my mouth is stopped.