Woman Enough

Jeg leser om kjønn og identitet for tida, og kom over dette diktet:

Because my grandmother's hours

were apple cakes baking,

dust motes gathering,

linens yellowing

& seams and hems

inevitably unravelling -

I almost never keep house -

though really I like houses

& wish I had a clean one.

Because my mother's minutes

were sucked into the roar

of the vacuum clearner,

because she waltzed with washer-dryer

& tore her hair waiting for repairmen -

I send out my laundry,

& live in a dusty house,

though really I like clean houses

as well as anyone.

I am woman enough

to love the kneading of bread

as much as the feel of typewriter keys

under my fingers -

spring, springy.

& the smell of clean laundry

& simmering soup

are almost as dear to me

as the smell of paper and ink.

I wish there were not a choice;

I wish I could be two women.

I wish the days could be longer

But they are short.

So I write while dust piles up.

I sit at my typewriter

remembering my grandmother

& all my mothers,

& the minutes they lost

loving houses better than themselves -

& the man I love cleans up the kitchen

grumbling only a little

because he knows

that after all these centuries

it is easier for him

than for me.

Erica Jong, The Raving Beauties, 1983