License plate on the car ahead reads
"It's a child, not a choice"
And I wonder
Has it really been 38 years since
I was granted the right to
my own body?
And I wonder
why I have to look
over my shoulder
in my rear view mirror
to see who's trailing me
to the clinic
And I wonder
why I have to dodge pamphlets
pushed on me like politician's handshakes
and curses thrown like middle school spitballs
We all make our choices
You say you choose life
so why do you paste a scarlet A
on the doctor's chest like a target
for the snipers to gun him down?
We all make our choices
is what you say
So what do you say
to the man who chooses to rape his daughter?
to the mother who chooses to pretend not to see?
what do you say
to the girl
a child herself
with shame and confusion growing inside her
like a cancer?
Do you choose to call her murderer?
Damn her to hell?
We all make our choices
And what of the child
whose mama chooses
not to feed him today?
Who wears last week's clothes
reeking of urine and
steals money at school?
Does he choose this life?
You cry over the lost tadpoles but
look the other way when the frogs die
in their formaldehyde ponds
another one pinned on the dissection tray
just another day
Go ahead
Slap a bumper sticker on your car
We all make our choices.
submitted for Poets United, Thursday Think Tank, Choices
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Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. Leonard Cohen
10 comments:
I knew I chose to love you for a reason..........
:)
dang...& bang...spot on...a harrowing world in which we live...everyone carrying their axe to grind over their shoulders ready to chop the heads of offenders...very well written
Outstanding!!! Well spoken.
Scathing, and well-aimed, Ms. Mouse.
I felt my insides churn with your words...yes, we makes our choices.
Nice one ~
Love, love, love your last stanza, last stance. Your symbolic metaphor in, tadpoles, frogs in formaldehyde then dissection trays
speak directly to human hypocracy with most of those that promulgate a position of 'pro life'.
I knew, as Mimi very well put it, why I chose to love you.
Tu amigo!
Wow! This is so powerful..they say "pro life" but spew you are going to hell the next breath...
You are so damn good at this. That was one of the most powerful pro-choice (or anti-right to life) things I've ever read. You make me want to put my camera down and write more...
Brilliant. It would not be a choice I would want to have had to make but I know friends who thought they had no other choice.
In the end, it must be up to the woman.
And they must have the right to chose with out the added guilt from strangers
Abortion is sad, so is rape, why do people think that there is a right or wrong. There is just what is, I suppose why God will forgive you for anything. To bad prochoice people.do.not understand this concept.
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