content warning:  fire used against a woman to repress reporting of sexual violence

 

No Big Deal

for Nusrat Rafi

It’s easy for a man to say it’s “no 

big deal” while he decides to give away 

your identity, victimology, to show 

a face online extremists see just days 

before they bring you to a roof — accused

some man “above reproof” just eleven 

days ago — tell you they’d let you go, bruised 

if you’d recant, but you know a woman 

can, by lie, escape, today, a roof;

tomorrow die with coerced proof, complicity 

in crimes against the patriarchy. Truth

you tell though it is met without pity. 

Eleven days before these flames you feel, 

you tell a man who’ll say it’s no big deal.

 

 

…

Author’s Note:  Nusrat Rafi was a nineteen year old schoolgirl in Bangladeshwho was burned alive on the roof of her school after she reported her principal for sexual harassment.  She would die of her injuries four days later.  Her story and  the story of another 19 year old girl Jessica Chambers of Mississippi are featured in my manuscript The Stakes about fire being used as a tool of misogyny against women historically and in contemporary society.  It will be published next year by APEP Publications.

Kristin Garth is a Pushcart, Best of the Net & Rhysling nominated sonnet stalker. Her sonnets have stalked journals like Glass, Yes, Five:2:One, Luna Luna and more. She is the author of fourteen books of poetry including Pink Plastic House (Maverick Duck Press), Candy Cigarette Womanchild Noir (The Hedgehog Poetry Press), Flutter: Southern Gothic Fever Dream (TwistiT Press), The Meadow (APEP Publications) and Shut Your Eyes, Succubi (Maverick Duck). Follow her on Twitter:  (@lolaandjolie) and her website http://kristingarth.com