If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.
Shirley Chisholm
When opportunity failed to arrive like a taxi,
I left home—
a head of steam & unopened letters.
Took to haunting the clouded rooms
—English leather, dark oak
cigar smoke.
On stiletto heels, we could see
the cards men held, the deck
long ago stacked
in the dealer’s favor.
Skirting around the board room,
we forgot our places,
elbowed a seat. The table
already set against us.
But I bury my lede as women often do,
fashion a story—
charm becomes armor—
We were armed. They were
disarmed.
Our lilting voices disturbing
the papers piled on their desks, shuffling
their order into mine.
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Heidi Seaborn is author of 2020 PANK Book Award winner An Insomniac’s Slumber Party with Marilyn Monroe, the acclaimed debut Give a Girl Chaos and Comstock Chapbook 2020 Prize-winning Bite Marks. Heidi is Executive Editor of The Adroit Journal..
Photo by Christin Hume.
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