by Tricia Knoll
5am. This fleece robe does not ward off April chill
that goes to my bones knowing what leaked.
Someone could not stay silent. Someone was right.
Fifty years and my hand knows a rage. I grab a marker
to make my sign. Simple words, I insist, simple words:
I remember
that girl who hired a man to drive her
to Mexico. They did not drink Margaritas. She returned
with a raging infection. She lost one possible future
as a mother. She was eighteen. Jobless. Alone.
She rocked herself holding a teddy bear
and smoked menthol cigarettes. She did not tell
her Catholic family. I could hear her rocking
in the room next door. Her teddy bear wore
a scarlet ribbon.
Rachel Maddow said all her life women had this one right.
How strange to have become this old: I remember.
The Janes remember. The jobless remember. Those raped
remember. Those with hard decisions remember.
And now it’s possible to get legal abortions in Mexico.
Yes, I remember. My sign smells of broad-stroke marker.
Tricia Knoll does remember the days before Roe v. Wade. This draft court opinion terrifies her. As people in Ukraine have expressed, it is no gift to experience deja vu. Her poetry appears widely in anthologies, journals, and five collections of poetry. She is a contributing editor to Verse Virtual.