Impressions

In the hospital emergency waiting room
there she sat beside her husband, two
elderly people uncomfortable and concerned
she with swollen eyes strangely purple
dark circles bruising her face drawing all
eyes inexorably in her direction, swivelling
directly to regard the man seated beside her.
Three young women seated together hajibs
covering their dark hair nudge one another
fixated on regarding this couple representative
of another culture than their own as though
their presence is affirmation that not only
in a virulently misogynist religion are
women denigrated and mistreated to ensure
they acknowledge their place earning now
and again reprimands extracting pain to
reinforce admonitions that their subservient
status represents a heritage gift repeated
over the ages that they must learn to respect
but alien cultures too holding women in
lesser regard. As inexplicable as it would
appear to them the execrable state of the
old woman's face resulted from an accidental
fall extracting its full measure of reproach in
physical pain but no remorse resulting from
an imposed cultural stricture of male superiority.