Slavery: “the condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers of the right of ownership are exercised” – 1926 Slavery Convention
In Liverpool city, the International Slavery Museum
curates relics of humans subjugated by their own kind:
collars, brands, whips, shackles, bits and so on, ad nauseum.
In relationships skewed by absolute power, the ties that bind
one person to another as property, that life and fate controlled,
are everywhere declared wrong; anathema to the natural mind.
Restrictions on movement, coercion, the use of force, are enrolled
to compel servitude. The arrogation of sexuality is a sign too
of heinous exploitation of the unwilling weak. A story as old
as the fundamental panic to disarm your woman and rule,
to seduce and use, mating and begetting. She bears the brunt
of your pro-life fanaticism, your anti-wife bias, your sleight to sue
and deprive the world of salvation’s best hope - her blood every month
for her own regulation, her agency blessed, the posse called off the hunt.
© Caroline Hurley
Caroline Hurley's poems have previously appeared in Poetry24, as well as in The Electric Acorn, threemonkeysonline.com and in ESOF's 3nd Science Meets Poetry anthology. Clebran.org featured a chapter from her novel and also some flash fiction. Her current focus is on young adult fiction and screenwriting. She lives near an Irish bird reserve.
