Elle By Meredith Macdonald

I’m reading Elle by Donald Glover, and I’m struck by Elle’s predicament.

What do you do with a headstrong girl?

Fling her over the starboard deck and sail away, mate. 

Drop her on an impoverished beach with a

dying lover and a useless nursemaid. 

Throw her a bone; a trunk full of posh dresses next to a

tennis racquet

Supply her with enough salted fish to recognize the 

futility of survival. 

She stuffs her hand sewn dresses with duck feathers 

to waddle like a gluttonous duck

or else freeze to death in the beastly cold

in Eastern Canada.

Crush her with thoughts of France until she succumbs 

and uses the tennis racquet to whack a

seagull over its pitiful head.

There is no sport here.

C-a-n-a-d-a

B-a-n-a-n-a

Here men do not hit a leather ball back and forth over a net

Or play like children, dream about females

In France, Elle was an avid fan of tennis players

she proved to be most generous; it was her habit to offer the winner 

a night of secret, filthy fornication

in the King’s court of 1507

tennis inexplicably overtook jousting in popularity 

among the male courtesans

Alas, nothing blissful happens on grim Canadian soil

Elle reminds herself of the amusing power her salt cod once held

and its worthlessness on a barren beach

She savours entrails for breakfast and raw liver for lunch. 

She licks her bloody fingers as she exclaims, Jesus Joseph and Mary. 

Forgive me for my lascivious thoughts. 

Forgive me for my imperviousness, for it

has led me here

alone to rub my body against my madness—

I am not worthy of Your many blessings.

What do you do with a headstrong girl?

Blindly punish her without regard. 

Punish her until she is never complacent, until she 

never forgets

how foolish it is

to be a headstrong girl.