There is a cop who is both prowler and father:he comes from your block, grew up with your brothers, had certain ideals. You hardly know him in his boots and silver badge, on horseback, one hand touching his gun. You hardly know him but you have to get to know him:he has access to machinery that could kill you. He and his stallion clop like warlords among the trash, his ideals stand in the air, a frozen cloudfrom between his unsmiling lips. And so, when the time comes, you have to turn to him, the maniac’s sperm still greasing your thighs, your mind whirling like crazy. You have to confessto him, you are guilty of the crimeof having been forced. And you see his blue eyes, the blue eyes of all the familywhom you used to know, grow narrow and glisten, his hand types out the detailsand he wants them allbut the hysteria in your voice pleases him best. You hardly know him but now he thinks he knows you:he has taken down you worst momenton a machine and filed it in a file. He knows, or thinks he knows, how much you imagined;he knows, or thinks he knows, what you secretly wanted. He has access to machinery that could get you put away;and if, in the sickening light of the precinct, and if, in the sickening light of the precinct, your details sound like a portrait of your confessor, will you swallow, will you deny them, will you lie your way home?. Adrienne Rich
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More Quotes By Adrienne Rich
  1. No one has imagined us. We want to live like trees, sycamores blazing through the sulfuric air, dappled with scars, still exuberantly budding, our animal passion rooted in the city.
  2. There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep and still be counted as warriors.
  3. Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you..it means that you do not treat your body as a commodity with which to purchase superficial intimacy or economic security; for our bodies to be treated as objects, our...
  4. There is no 'the truth, ' 'a truth'--truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity.
  5. Truthfulness, honor, is not something which springs ablaze of itself; it has to be created between people. This is true in political situations. The quality and depth of the politics evolving from a group depends in large part on their understanding of honor. Much of...
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