There was no room for emergency
in the emergency room
so she settled into her car
as life emerged from her,
and then life left
her infant, too.
What were the doctors supposed to do?
If you said first, no harm
then no harm done,
but that math isn't fooling
anyone. It's attention diverted
from the harm of inaction
when fear has gained traction
and pro-life is merely
forced birth,
and such births will happen anyhow
and that the baby died doesn't matter
to the screamers now-
having happened in a car
not a clinic.
Call me a cynic, but if you call this
an act of God, or
an act of fate,
I would say no--it was the state
that barred the door
that tied the hands
that choked the heart
that buried the child,
all mummified in red tape.
Tape as red as blood.
