by Barbara Lightner
The hullabaloo careened
through confused hearts and minds,
and into the interstices of the internet;
the pundits, the bloggers,
the huff-huffs and puffers;
unworthy of the sad tale it encumbered.
If you didn't know the story
there wasn't any story
to speak of.
Some millions spent on an ad:
an interesting-looking woman,
her grown-up son,
and fall-flat humor
about how she was tougher
than a quarterback.
That's the way
giving birth has been
since the beginning of time,
all of us birthing-woman
would agree;
taking it tough,
tougher than a quarterback,
no matter the circumstance.
Good to see homage being given,
the message finally got right
(though they didn't mean it that way,
ignorance casting its light).
Barbara Lightner is a 70-year old shameless agitator, retired. She is an avowed pro-choicer who currently lives in Milwaukee, WI. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Table Rock Review, Poesia, the Zocalo Press chapbook series, the feminist poetry anthology Letters to the World. Several of her poems will be set to music by composer Larry Smith.
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