Bad Poetry: Woman in a War Zone

An Interview with Scarlett O'Hara About the Scene That Makes Modern Readers Hate Her

"I know Prissy needed that slap, Mrs. Butler," I said,

Time-travelling, waving the fan that popped into my hand,

"But in my home century, the lack of apologies, hugs,

And bonding when it was all over, we can't understand."

"Imagine, if you can," she said, "giving birth to a baby

While the doctors, all of them male, were caught by demand

To catch what we now know were fatal infections from soldiers

And carry them home to the mothers all over the land.

But on that day, all of them were still out there with the army,

And even a full-grown woman's help was hard to get,

And if things had gone wrong with the birth--thank Heaven they didn't--

Any woman's surviving would have put long odds on a bet.

Apologies? To little Prissy? I know what you mean.

It's easy to think about these things, after the crisis.

She was just a foolish child. What was she--fifteen?

Thinking they know more than they do is one of the vices

Of children that age. And I wasn't much older, myself.

I was in no condition to play the impartial judge!

Melanie could have bled to death out there on that road

And it would have been the fault of that lying little drudge.

Well, she was well and truly punished that day

For pretending to be an adult, when she was no such.

Either one of my sisters would have been punished that way.

Even Prissy knows that--and you know she still doesn't know much!

People who scream, rage, cry, giggle, tremble, give vent to emotions

All jumbled together, what we call hysterical fits,

Can damage themselves. Every girl learns that one must slap those people

To help preserve what they may have, in the way of wits.

In your century Black people--how rude that phrase sounds, even now!--

Make use of good educations; in mine they do not,

But some, like my Mammy, have profound innate intelligence.

Intelligence is a thing that Prissy never has got.

She's married, now. Some poor young man's stupid as she.

Their whole neighborhood laugh at the idiot things that they do.

Stupid people can't bear to remember their stupidity.

I think that's why they never learn better ways. You know. Don't you?

Stupid people really are better off when they have keepers.

Don't say "racist." I know some stupid people are White.

Whatever they look like, turning them out on their own,

Even in their own neighborhoods, only makes pockets of blight.

But even if Prissy had had any sense, here's the thing.

Is your doctor your friend? If he were, would he not refuse

To see you as a patient? Like us, you must have boundaries

Among different forms of intimacy. Is that news?

If my maid or my cook were my friends, I could never endure

To live with them as maid or as cook. They would know far too much.

Your time's dropped all pretense that even young ladies are 'pure,'

Yet you'd never permit your dentist any other kind of touch."