we wait

the patriarchy is falling
has been falling slowly
for
    Years
    Centuries
    Millennia

It was doomed from the start.


the patriarchy is falling
Colonialism, too
the Supremacy of Whiteness, all

gently,
bit by bit
falling
like scales
    from eyes
    hearts
    minds,
one by one
they continue
falling
faster, faster

There will be no returning.


the patriarchy is falling
though it will insist
to its dying day that

1. It does not exist
2. It has no idea what you’re talking about
3. Are you sure you even know what that word means?

we have humored it for so long,
pretending we hadn’t noticed;
not wanting to be rude


the patriarchy is falling
has been past the point for
so long now that
some of us
started thinking it was
Just a Harmless Joke

assuming
foregone conclusions
we got complacent
assuming

somehow
it would leave
gracefully

like a matriarch

but

this
is
no
matriarch


so the patriarchy is falling;
it’s in its final hour

but

it is a drunken poet--
will not go gently
into this good night

it rages, rages
against the dying of the light,
the flicker Of torches
on white faces
Of televisions
insisting they are god and guru
Of gunfire
lighting up
    Schoolyards,
    Crowds of revelers,
    Innocent black bodies holding
        Candy
        Books
        Telephones...

it flails around wildly,
an upset toddler
with knives for fingers

No. NO!!
its protestations long past having made any sense

just Noise
and Fire
and Violence

It will give us all its got,

pretending to the last
it doesn’t know
there’s nothing left
in all its power
to stop
the fact
that


the
patriarchy
is
falling

image: Tina Urso McDaniel 2017