My friends are not on my side.
They scold like old nuns—as if I
could make this little Catholic girl
do what I want her to do —
she a child too and someone else‘s—
but to our boy-child I do suggest
that he suggest
the A-word:
And then her sobs
make his phone rock in his hand.
That sound of a wounded dog yelping
brings back our sweet Lab’s cry
when this boy drove his bike over her paw.
That too was by accident.
He stares at the floor while his red-headed girl
begs me to tell him—our love—
yes, our—he‘s my love too!—
„Dont ask me to kill our baby!“
But I tell him something else:
This is not their baby
but a clump of unformed matter
as incomplete
as a box of Betty Crocker cake mix.
His face tells me he is weak and torn,
digging down into the bottom of himself.
The rhetorics of baking and killing
jostle in his eyes.
Betty and Baby.
And so It will be her crying without shame
and, perhaps, the prodding
of her pretty three-inch nails
that will decide where
they go next.
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