The Classification of Gifts

We buy such lovely
gifts to propitiate our Gods:
silk scarves, dates, flowers.

Bent under the weight
of their pronouncements, we bow,
and sway like willows.

Carol Dorf is a graduate of Clairion West. Her writing has appeared in Illumen, Sin Fronteras, The Mom Egg, Sentence, Hip Mama: The Parenting Zine, The Prose Poem Project, Unlikely Stories, Helix, In Posse Review, Poemeleon, Fringe, The Midway, A Cappella Zoo, Feminist Studies, Heresies and elsewhere. Her reviews have appeared in SFRA. She is the poetry editor of Talking Writing. She teaches math at Berkeley High School.