Dignity

After the decision is made, the first thing that’s done
is to thumb the Yellow Pages, which discreetly
cross-references to clinics. Not so bashful,
the double-page spread bulges with boxes; each proclaims
Abortion
in bold.

You are informed by the nurse that you can’t milk it –
back to work the same day. Then
you wait
in a basement lined with women on plastic chairs
who intermittently shuffle to the toilet,
fidget with their hair, or ferret in their bags for
something lost they won’t find there, each crushed
by the weight of her own fecundity.
My turn.

I lie like an up-turned beetle,
legs dangling untidily from tethered ankles.
The Doctor broaches my transposed squat
to numb my cervix with a glot of cream on a spatula.
Then he passes on to whoever is next in the
production line of exposure, leaving me
marooned.



He’s back and
there’s no overture, just
the clang of a metal dish
by my ungainly gape then
a slick excavation like
the final scrawp of the bowl before
you lick the spoon.
I try to squeeze
all my attention upon
the tinny emanation – I think
it’s Lionel Ritchie – and
not on my contraction.
Not the contraction.
He hums along as he makes
a second pass I’ve been alone
with you inside my mind my
outraged womb coaxed
to expel too soon
Hello… is it me you’re looking for
and then a third.
And then it’s done.

A couple of Paracetemol and I’m on my way,
blinking in the daylight, wondering on the bus
if they took an important piece of me?


03/03