Marge Piercy (born March 31, 1936) is an American poet, novelist, and social activist. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Gone to Soldiers, a sweeping historical novel set during World War II.
As of 2004 she is author of seventeen volumes of poems, among them The Moon is Always Female (1980, considered a feminist classic) and The Art of Blessing the Day (1999), as well as fifteen novels, one play (The Last White Class, co-authored with her third and current husband Ira Wood), one collection of essays (Parti-colored Blocks for a Quilt), one nonfiction book, and one memoir.
ECLIPSE AT THE SOLSTICE
Marge Pierce
New moon and the hottest sun:
It should be the day of the triumphant
sun marching like a red elephant
up the lapis arch of sky.
The moon is invisible, shy,
almost wounded. She draws
the thin short darkness around her
like a torn dress.
Then in the fat of the afternoon
she slides over the sun
enveloping him. I have
conquered, she croons,
brought darkness and put the birds
to sleep, raised the twilight wind.
But then his corona shines
around her and she sees.
You really are a lion with mane
of white, you beauty. So
she gives him the day back,
slowly, and lets him roar.
===========
THE FRIEND
Marge Piercy
We sat across the table.
he said, cut off your hands.
they are always poking at things.
they might touch me.
I said yes.
Food grew cold on the table.
he said, burn your body.
it is not clean and smells like sex.
it rubs my mind sore.
I said yes.
I love you, I said.
That’s very nice, he said
I like to be loved,
that makes me happy.
Have you cut off your hands yet?