By Magi Gibson,
She counts dead women. Not women
wiped out in warzones by bullets and bombs, nor
the 63 million missing in India – Rita Banjeri
is keeping count of them. Nor is she counting
the Korean Comfort Women, piecing
together what’s left of their bones
from the fire pits where they perished. No,
she keeps count closer to home. But not
the victims of wild-eyed strangers they drilled
us to evade: stay with your pals when you leave the pub,
don’t walk down darkened lanes, don’t take shortcuts
through woods alone, don’t get into vans,
don’t wear too short skirts, too high heels,
low-cut tops, don’t end up a headline
a corpse a break-a-mother’s-heart statistic
in a ditch. No, not those! She is counting women
killed with knives, shotguns, ropes, with septic
tanks and fists, with poison, cricket bats and fire
each killed by a man who said he loved her once,
a boyfriend, husband, partner, ex, a man she trusted
in her home. A man who thought her life no longer
counts. But she is counting, every week, every one.
And we are counting with her.
