CHOICES: AN ABORTION SONNET

by Anne Graue

I sat muted in a waiting room, stared at mauve and teal

paintings framed in un-brilliance, the desk Formica. The phone

rang—no ring tones in ‘82—not quite silence, glances not too close—

I knew her—she went to my high school—we both waited.

 

When is a raven like a writing desk?

 

I hate riddles! They follow a maddening logic. The Mad

Hatter and March Hare sit at court, judging. The dormouse asks,

 

Would you like some more tea?

How can I have more when I haven't had any?

Rabbit's fur is softer than anything I’ve ever touched.

 

The act of choosing is easy, and there

in that room tears fell like a solution

and control. Recover, reset the clock.

 

I'm late! No, I got there just in time.

 

Anne Graue exercised her right to choose in 1982, a private decision that was right for her at the time. She is a poet who believes in personal choice and privacy and that there are times when some things need to be public. She wishes for freedom of choice for her daughters—for all daughters. 

NOMINATING HIGH RISK

by Margaret Rozga 

“Top of the Ticket” cartoon by David Horsey / Los Angeles Times, June 2, 2016.

Imagine a rabbit, running, late.
Imagine a rabbit no earlier
on the ground than under.

Alice locked out of the garden
too big, too small, never right
as much on the ground as under,

uncertain of direction,
advised only to take the road
that gets her where she wants to go,
as if she knew, either on the ground or under.

Even at tea, her place changes,
is changed, exchanged, until
she’s displaced, no rhyme nor reason
either on the ground or under.

At the queen’s command an unruly hand
of insubstantial and un-gamely subjects.
At risk anyone, everyone’s head,
no less on these grounds than under.

What time is this, what times are these,
rude, rough, incomprehensible
how a rabbit’s world surfaced,
and calm picnic grounds went under.

Alice, you just dreamed you fell and didn’t
know when, how, or where you’d stop.
Now that dream is playing out
on our ground,
not under.

Margaret Rozga is a poet, essayist, and author of a play, March On Milwaukee: A Memoir of the Open Housing Protests.  Her new manuscript of poems focuses on Jessie Benton Frémont (1824-1902), who actively campaigned in 1856 for her husband  John Charles Frémont, the first Republican candidate for president on an anti-slavery platform.