Hatagoya's Desk

Sunday, July 31, 2022

Sonnet to the Fifty-One Senators Who Voted
Against the Women’s Health Protection Act

by Joanne Durham 
 
I don’t have a personal story 
to pull at your heartstrings.    Never
bled sterile from a coat hanger.    Never
carried a child inside my body 

minus a mouth or a windpipe, knowing 
they would die within days strangled 
on their own breath. Was young and naive
but never paid the price. In America, we elect

you for your adorable puppy and three smiling 
children, spaced apart like their perfectly 
braced teeth. Then you abort 
compassion  --   your heartstrings broken. 

Our shared story is watching five deemed
Supreme smirk us back to the Dark Ages.

3 comments:

David Chorlton said...

Thanks for this poem, Joanne. You focus on the situation with more real style than those judges could ever muster.

Geoffrey Aitken said...

Friends here downunder are dumbstruck by our 'guiding light' America - generationally back to rock and roll that now seems only to rock - incandessantly. Your poem should read into their blind eyes.

LindaMB said...

this poem struck me like a fist - you have wasted no words in this damning indictment of your 'Supreme' Court's actions. The final couplet hit the hardest of all. Excellent poetry.

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