“In the Night the Women Flee” by S. Carter

Sophia Carter is an undergraduate at the University of Tennessee, her home state. Studying History and Information Sciences, she works as a photographer for Ablaze Magazine and as a young creative writer. In addition to working on her debut novel, she practices poetry, prose, and entertaining her two cats.

Author’s note: ““In the Night the Women Flee” depicts careful relationships between women in a world that mirrors their own creative minds. Despite a society built off of beauty, pain, and everything in between, the relationships they build are often more complicated than these abstract concepts, especially when finding one’s true identity. This poem engages with the female gender in regard to the humanity we find in our own environment, one not so dissimilar from the meadow.”

In the Night the Women Flee

In the night the women flee
There is a silk soft meadow at the bottom of the hill
There is nothing to cry about; they do anyway
They weep tears of honey, of sawdust, of lavender and sage
Where there is joy there is pain, and they wouldn’t have it any other way

In the night the women flee
There are no words to speak so instead they sing
They light fires in the daytime and go swimming at night
They weave blankets for newborns and elders and collect sticks and dirt for fun
They grow up learning to break but then heal,
To lose but then love

There are no mirrors in the meadow because there need not be; their souls are too reliable to need
self satisfaction
But there is a girl by the edge of the pond,
Desperately trying to catch a glimpse of her face
Across the pond her mother throws stones into the water,
Shielding her daughter from ever stealing a look
For years, the girl blames the stones
Then her mother
Then herself

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