The Last Girl  

by Donna Hébert

I wait for the next

Whoever he is, it is never the same

Sometimes I try to remember

But it’s better not to

The older women hid me

As long as they could

Rubbed dirt on my skin,

padded my middle

to make me

fat, unattractive

But I must be pretty

so by the time I was seven,

my childhood was over

One of the older women

could read and write

I was ten the year she was caught

with pen and paper

We had to watch

until she begged to die

and was, at last, granted her wish

I bore a child to one man only in my teens

He paid millions for the privilege,

then spayed me so

no other would

inhabit my womb

I nursed my son for three months

before they took him

Male children survive

But only the girls

they judge pretty and stupid

survived to mate

And those who own them

name their price

Now mine is above rubies

but it buys you nothing

Each waking moment I wait

for whatever comes

I no longer think of them as ‘who’

I tell myself I don’t care

Suicide? How many cameras

can you see in the room?

The last girl

The loneliest woman on earth

but never as lonely

as they will be

when I am gone

* * * * *

© 2013 Donna Hébert, all rights reserved

Donna Hébert, a fiddler since 1972, writes, performs, records, and teaches fiddle at Amherst and Smith Colleges. Her latest CD is a poetry and music collaboration, "The Infinite Dark," with Jane Yolen, Lui Collins and Max Cohen. fiddlingdemystified.com, the3ravens.com.