poem
Volume 24, Number 3

Married to the Job

If my job was a man
No one would have told me to stay with him
After seeing the fingerprint bruises on my neck
If my job was a man
My friends wouldn’t have told me I was lucky to have him
If my job was a man
My mother wouldn’t have told me to bear the beatings
Until I could find another one
Served him another beer while he laughed with his friends
That you can’t tell a woman with two black eyes
Anything you haven’t already told her
Twice


—Kristina Byrne