a poem about abortion
By Devi K. LockwoodNo, not scrubs. Put on your tight purple dress and heels,
dig them into the new carpet. You have to look gorgeous,
that way they’ll trust you. And the patients start pouring in.
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Devi K. LockwoodNo, not scrubs. Put on your tight purple dress and heels,
dig them into the new carpet. You have to look gorgeous,
that way they’ll trust you. And the patients start pouring in.
By Sara BrickmanOwosso, Michigan is cinder blocks
stacked on top of potato cellars and steamrolled
grey. There’s a lot of corn,
By Kendra DeColoIt is easy to believe
we are separate entities,
you and I
as I wait, a fish in the chasm
By Catherine CalabroSanta Maria della Pieve above us, and the light-speared trees.
At the cast-iron table you tried to tell
the gentleman how we were related,
how I came from you, or halves of you.
By Constance NorgrenWho is she, standing just off-center,
her eyes on us, caught turning to us,
her arms folded over her chest,
By Demetrice Anntía WorleyOn this eve of the dead, I cry out loud,
“por favor Virgen de Guadalupe, don’t
forsake me,” before I open the door,
before I see la policía flat
By Jenny BrowneWheeled onto the jet leaving
my town, another soldier
whose pruned body echoes earth
liberating itself from gravity.
By Teresa ScollonLook how you've carried these small bodies
across the ocean, looking for the next one
to hear the story. Look how gently you laid
these children down at the fire where stories are told.
By Lauren K. AlleyneTonight you are full of small rivers:
your eyes’ salty runoff, the rust-bright
trickle staining your thigh, the unnamable,
By Jill KhouryThe boy across the street points at me and lisps—now I know what they mean in books when they say children lisp. He wears a red and white striped t-shirt, addresses my friend who walks beside me. I ask people to please walk on my left side. It’s the eye that’s not completely dead I say. They always move over.