PROTESTS

Aged seventeen I asked for The Pill
but Dad insisted
nice girls just say No.

A few years on I went barefoot
and burned my bra
but three kids had shrunk my boobs
so no one noticed.

Later we marched
for abortions on demand
but two doctors had to sign the forms
and they were all men.

The camp on Greenham Common was cold,
our children mud-spattered and wild,
but we wanted them to live –
not be spread across the landscape
like Hiroshima paint.

Then black kids stormed
the hallowed halls of Yale,
gay rainbow colours thronged the streets –
we marched for climate change
for our oceans
for our future.

Yet still our voices are not heard,
still protests are met with guns
and I am growing old –

but I’m still fighting.