“For the two Utah congressmen who voted No, because “there is a chance women will return to be hit a few more times in order to stay on welfare.” by Valerie Wallace

“For the two Utah congressmen who voted No, because “there is a chance women will return to be hit a few more times in order to stay on welfare.”

                                                                  —October 1999
Ask the wife shot
& stabbed fourteen times
on her neighbor’s porch
the wife’s face
gone, on the courthouse
steps Ask the one dead in the courtroom
the one in her garage, against the garage wall
the one in her car, head split
in her children’s bedroom
ask her why she left,
if she’d go back
Before you tell her
she will return
ask if she can ever      ever
ever      get away

Wallace, Valerie. “For the Two Utah Congressmen Who Voted No, Because “There Is a Chance Women Will Return to Be Hit a Few More Times in Order to Stay on Welfare”.” Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, no. 16, 2001, p. 100.