I don’t know why the world isn’t screaming about what’s happening in Afghanistan
How to silence any protest from women? Make speech illegal, writes Frieda Hughes. What the Taliban is doing is unthinkable
CONSTRAINTS
Sometimes we choose our constraints
And the heartbeats of our boundaries. But not always.
For the first time in months, since my critter-carer
Who’d feed my ferrets, walk dogs and toss defrosted chicks
To waiting owls left me, I stayed away for a night.
Henley-on-Thames was still there, with the river idling by
As if it never rose or fell, offering ducks and geese
In return for bread, in a world in which the shutters are closing.
Senior government policy advisors in anonymous buildings
Are finding ways to qualify themselves for enrichment
And give themselves purpose – even in being pointless –
While diminishing your one, your only, precious life.
Legislation, complications, restrictions, go slow, go slower still,
Until stationary. Licences, certificates, three points of contact
On all ladders, and AI is closing in, reinventing us as it feeds
From the dwindling freedoms of mostly women. Some don’t
Even own the land rights to their own wombs, others are banned
From speaking in public from beneath the premature shrouds
That obliterate their features, by men, in fear of other men
Who cannot control their upright appendages, and themselves.