ABORTION

My body prepares for mothering

I cannot sleep

I watch breasts fill with unwanted milk

Belly rounds, softens

All night I hear the child whisper within me

Will I ever sleep again?

My church demands

Life is life, thou shalt not kill

But surely God would not demand I birth this child.

Surely God would understand

In the clinic

The clean white clinic

They dress me in a clean white gown and

The clean white doctor with no face leans over me, and

The clean white nurse with her voice of comfort and no face

Holds my hand

When the quick deep pain comes, I squeeze her hand

So hard I think it might break

She doesn’t cry out

I don’t cry out

I think I hear the baby cry one long howl of protest

NOOOOOOO

But how can it?

It has no mouth yet

The clean white social worker at the clinic

Tells me it has no mouth yet.

They wheel my empty body away

I lie in a row with the others

Neatly in a clean white row

We of the gutted bodies

Where do they throw away the dead babies?

I forgot to ask.

I’ll never know where my baby is.

I light a candle for it in church every week.