Abortion
I saw them, the couple.
They came down the backstairs in the star-dark middle of the night,
beneath the neon exit right by where I stand, and they held each other
as if they were falling apart and the only glue they had was each other.
They were fragile like broken china plates that life had pushed off the table.
And in their arms together they held a little bundle,
a warm swaddling mass -
I could see the steam rising up off it.
She turned to him and choked on her question:
“Are you sure?”
He looked at her and nodded, grimly,
pain etched on his face.
They walked up to me and slid open my heavy green door
and dropped their bundle in.
They dropped that baby in me and I was its second womb,
protecting it against the elements,
holding it deep within my belly.
I felt it kick and move, but it was young, and feeble.
The couple turned and left, not a single backwards glance,
and I felt the bane of life deep within me.
I was not fit to bear this burden.
I had not conceived it,
I had not asked for it,
I had no part in its making or birthing or living.
But they gave me the curse of being a part of its death.
I felt the baby in me.
I felt it kick, and struggle, and once -
but only once -
did she cry out.
She mewled pathetically, a sad little creature
thrust into the cruel cold trashy world only to perish.
And if my cold mechanical sides could have collapsed to hold her,
could have warmed to save her,
believe me when I said I would have done so,
and borne that baby into a world that was better than this sad rubbish.
But all I could do was offer feeble protection,
a slightly less awful passing and a hope
that she would live again and better.
I have no heart, only four metal walls, a lid, a door.
Still I mourned when they pulled her out from me,
her body long since blue in the night.
Their dark coats and sorrowful faces merged in one image,
their badges tarnished symbols of rescue come too late,
and my boxy metal construction was unmoved.
I have been a birthplace before,
for sewer rats and alley cats,
for fleas and ticks and maggots.
But I had never lost a baby before this night.
