Labor Day

I find it difficult to look at pregnant

women floating around in bluebell

dresses like handmaids cut generously

across the waist.

A doll's clothes in A-line, softly pleated &

framed, don't you think? Do mothers dread

birth & a separation that is more than a

severing of bodies? How it must hurt to be an

incarcerated baby victim so tender on

day one of life. More than a crime is the

child's loss of skin to skin memory & rendering

of a sentence & justice so finely sliced.

Like the Sword of Damocles

a hair's breadth distance

hangs & divides minutes

from bonding in the soul

Does time count whether I am a mother

for five minutes or fifty years?

Before dawn fifteen women are gathered in

the hallway outside of the prison triage room

waiting for first blood to be drawn.

A pre-mother groans out a cadence of breaths.

We count for her, a personal Greek chorus

foreshadowing the sacrifice.