Naked Athena

Listen, you incels, for you’ve never seen
A vision of fury like Naked Athena

(So monicker’d via sensational tweets
When she faced down the troops on Portlandia’s streets

At two in the morning on 18 July).
The 50th night of unrest had gone by,

And camouflaged boys from the DHS
Kept order by making a random arrest,

Surrounding a frightened, defiant young man
And hauling him off in a rental van.

Another was listed in stable condition,
Shot in the head with an impact munition,

While heroes in onesies, with bludgeons and bombs,
Courageously beat back a Wall of Moms.

But then, when a goggle-eyed, helmeted herd
Formed a potbelly blockade at Taylor and Third,

That was the moment a stripper named Jen —
Of one-score years, plus five and ten —

Made up her mind she would no longer take it
And said to her partner, “I want to be naked.”

“I’ll hold your clothes,” her partner replied.
So she sought out a doorway and ducked inside.

With professional deftness, she took it all off,
Save her Liberty cap and the mask for her cough.

Then she strode from the shadows into the glare
Of streetlights and headlights, her message laid bare —

Shoot, if you will, this POC,
But everyone here’s as defenseless as me.

A wannabe Galahad rose to protect her
(While taking a moment to closely inspect her) —

“Stop this,” he told her. “Get out of the street.”
She had brushed him aside (though she thought it was sweet)

When a local took aim and shot off a round.
It bloodied her foot, and she sat on the ground,

Hands on her shins and legs wide-set,
To show that one kootch was ballsy yet.

And all they could do was stand silent and stony,
For they’d never been faced with a weaponized yoni.

You saw the photos the news sites ran,
And as they went viral, the PMs began:

Was she practicing yoga? Or doing ballet?
Just what was this spectacle meant to convey?

Did it distract from the matter at hand,
The plague of injustice infesting the land?

And if she’d been older? Or darker? Or fat?
How would the trolls have reacted to that?

All valid questions, but I swear by the gods —
The woman was naked, you oblivious clods.