Liberation
we went to the medieval days show
with knights and jousting, a king, beautiful queen
and Wench Jo, that’s what she called herself.
I watched the battles and cheered, it was fun
but it wasn’t real,
and the speeches and the heraldry and the pageantry
it was great, but it was false.
Wench Jo served us beer and chicken
potatoes and corn (both of which are
new world crops, which wouldn’t be
available in medieval Europe) and
she was real—
not her smile, that was phony
not her happy demeaner, that was acting
but a woman
treated like it is the year 1402
she didn’t really have to pretend much,
did she?
Peter J. Kahn is from Wisconsin but spends as much time as he can every year in the medieval city of Toru?, Poland to escape the drudgery and mental kie?basyfikacja of his jobs in warehouses, lumberyards, retail, and worse.
