Some Thoughts on Abortion
A poem
--
Some thoughts on Abortion
I saw a monarch butterfly
inexplicably afloat, and lost
amid the alien landscape
of a Walmart store,
its startling beauty
like a manifestation of panic
found in an orange and black blur,
paper-thin wings
careening it through the aisles
of Maxi-Pad boxes, displays of boner pills,
stacks of Fixodent splashed
with photographs of forever smiles.
All these explosions of color,
and yet, none of them sustenance
for the small life lured
into the monster’s womb,
no doubt by scents of flowers
kept miles and miles away
when scaled to its size,
but no one seemed to notice.
No one seemed to care,
they just kept shopping,
chattering their gossips, rolling their wheels.
Even the birds
who sometimes mistake
an open garage
for the comforts of a cave,
are smart enough to fly away.
Meanwhile, tonight I will walk my dog.
We’ll see two small rabbits
crouched silent and still in the darkening grass.
The animal instincts will try
to tell my beloved baby
that he should go in for the kill,
but the leash I hold
will keep his teeth at bay,
and I will think of the way
my wife and I felt so relieved
and yet so guilty to learn
that twice we’d escaped a prison term.
