jane roe

blasphemous, to be in charge

of your own flesh.

obey those

who will never carry the burden

that has been imposed 

since the beginning of time—

six weeks, they generously offer,

to discover if the course

of your existence has been altered forever,

six weeks to pray for blood that will not come. 

let their long black gowns, 

slathered in patriarchal superiority,

dictate every inch of your body; 

unwitting during conception, 

unwilling during conception.

let the babies have babies;

tend to life as you barely start your own, 

cradle a wailing child in one hand

and an algebra textbook in the other.

let labor drain you 

of health and resources,

rip you apart until

nothing is left.

rue for those jane roes,

for the dismissals of their traumas,

their choiceless futures,

and their bodies rendered still—

let your cries be silenced,

and biblical destinies fulfilled,

value those feeble heartbeats

and the legislation that protects them

more than they protect you.

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