May 8, 2022Neon Shades of Youth
With lines from my high school students’ conversations after the Roe v. Wade SCOTUS leak.
it’s not ohvulation it’s awvulation.
I am a young woman
in America.
this is my neon youth.
there is a man in a black coat at the back of the dark alley,
and I fear I am only waiting
my turn.
you cannot build a human from my organs after I die—
a man’s body,
seminal vesicles like a tiny brain
behind his bladder.
no one has ever taken his straight-cis-white-rights.
a woman’s heartbeat, as red as a wax seal,
hides a letter they won’t let us read.
where does the egg go?
are we shells or are we roots or are we buildings or are we torches.
from Poets Respond