Poetry, Anna Boughtwood
Local news tells the story of a man, a hunter
armed with a camera
Women are deer, trying to explain in
the comment section how when his camera lens is
trained on us, we are in the crosshairs of a gun.
How the snap of the camera’s shutter is a gunshot.
How when he posts the photos of us online,
he has confined us,
pinned our legs in a forever-snare trap.
Local news tells the story of a
man, the same man,
a lepidopterist treating the internet
as his butterfly pinning board.
Women are butterflies,
straining against the pins
piercing our thorax, trying to explain–
How it feels to have the public’s gaze
upon our innermost wings.
Men are birds, flocking to the post,
singing an endless dawn chorus with the refrain:
There is no reasonable expectation of
privacy in a public place.
Anna Boughtwood is a poet and fiber artist living in Albany NY. Her writing has appeared in The Quarter(ly), Impostor, and Beaver Magazine. She enjoys reading and working on elaborate knitting projects. Find her on Instagram @lotsa_livres posting about cats.