Woman-Kind?

from Songs For Samuel by Norah Vincent & Vern Woodhead

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lyrics

WOMAN-KIND?

Evolution doesn’t play dice
Or leave a task
As dire as propagation
To chance.
Feminine mystiques beguile,
But the weaker sex gives birth
In pained and bloody sport.

Girls are nature’s
Genotype of choice.
And the Y in boys, they say,
is a defective X.
Seed, unlike a fetus,
Is dispensable
As men themselves,
Custom’s casualties of war.

PRETTY—
SMOOTHED AND DECORATED FACES
NOTWITHSTANDING,
FEMALE FITNESS IS ASSURED,
BY TRIALED AND TESTED
UGLINESS HARD WON.
THE FATAL HALF,
AND FIERCER OF OUR KIND BY FAR,
WOMEN BEAR THEIR LABEL
“BITCHES” WITH GOOD REASON,
SLURRING NO ONE BUT THE DOG.

She lingers on the
Back sides of your tongue,
Like the slicking of your sleep
Before you had a name.
Woken rudely in a wash
To the chokehold of a groin,
And you—a bag of
Jam-smeared bones
Squeezing through a fistula,
Out—into the cold
The blinding
Whiteness of this place.

Savored adoration
In your mouth
Is in your memory
The aftertaste of birth.

PRETTY—
SMOOTHED AND DECORATED FACES
NOTWITHSTANDING,
FEMALE FITNESS IS ASSURED,
BY TRIALED AND TESTED
UGLINESS HARD WON.
THE FATAL HALF,
AND FIERCER OF OUR KIND BY FAR,
WOMEN BEAR THEIR LABEL
“BITCHES” WITH GOOD REASON,
SLURRING NO ONE BUT THE DOG.

credits

from Songs For Samuel, track released October 9, 2019
Words: Norah Vincent
Music: Vern Woodhead
Vocals: Vern Woodhead
Guitars: Vern Woodhead
Keyboard: Lars Pottiger
Bass: Dmitry Ishenko
Drums: Rob Mitzner
Mix: Charles Burst

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Norah Vincent & Vern Woodhead New York, New York

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