by Lavinia Kumar
—The Washington Post, January 20, 2023
No one
Confessed or squealed
The babe was dripped, not leaked.
Did the French letter have a hole?
Don’t tell.
In Court,
No leak of Roe—
No trust in settled law.
Was the IUD aborted?
Don’t tell.
The pill’s
Bitter poison
Sure to gag young women.
The law’s cold still-birth not controlled?
Don’t tell.
Lavinia Kumar’s latest book is Spirited American Women: Early Writers, Artists, & Activists—very short prose of near 90 amazing women writers, poets, publishers, painters, artists, abolitionists, early suffragettes, and activists.