by Carol Aronoff
Forced birth to increase
domestic supply of infants
for adoption. Not oil, not
chickens—children.
Is birth control next
to be sacrificed on the altar
of false piety– our bodies
offered up to the state?
Anger–too small a word to
contain my feelings of betrayal,
despair at the sufferings, deaths
to come, at memories triggered:
Of being told to steal a diaphragm off
the doctor’s desk because he couldn’t
prescribe contraceptives in the sixties,
in Boston, even to a married woman.
Of being molested by a Harley Street
physician as I lay on the table awaiting
an abortion, of being told he was doing
sex research as I must be a loose woman.
After years of struggle, lost and damaged
lives, are we once again commodities
to be exploited, trees forced to bear fruit,
to be plucked and plundered, driven
underground to early and unmarked graves?
Carol Aronoff is a poet who lives in rural Hawaii. She has published six full-length poetry collections, four chapbooks and her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals.