I’m lucky — not wise, or circumspect, or chaste — just lucky that I have not had an abortion. Thank you, Ann Kestner, for this poem.
Because of the Clinic, I Am Alive to Tell You This
I have come here almost alone, with only my self
and my dying baby. It is too early to be this sick.
No woman could survive a pregnancy like this.
There is no crowded waiting room here,
and yet the room is so full of energy and emotion
that the air seems compressed and hard to breathe.
A woman is crying, sitting at the edge of her chair,
her head bowed. In front of her a man speaks
in a language I once tried to learn but never did.
He towers over her like a fierce giant
waving his arms, his legs spread like a boxer.
One does not need to understand the words.
If she keeps the baby, he will kill her.
They call me back, gently, to a calm and quiet room.
I sit beside a woman…
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