I had written a completely different article for Mother’s Day, but when — between May Day and Mother’s Day — someone leaked a draft of the Supreme Court’s plan to overturn Roe v. Wade I decided to return to the text of Roe decision. This decision affirms that safe abortions are a constitutional right that is protected by the federal government. It was early in the Roe Supreme Court Justice Blackmun gives the majority opinion. This line is surprising for a legal argument.
We acknowledge our understanding of the sensitive and emotional nature the abortion debate, the strong opposing views even among doctors, and the deep and seemingly unshakeable convictions that it inspires. One’s philosophy, one’s experiences, one’s exposure to the raw edges of human existence, one’s religious training, one’s attitudes toward life and family and their values, and the moral standards one establishes and seeks to observe, are all likely to influence and to color one’s thinking and conclusions about abortion.
What might “exposure to the raw edges of human existence” look and feel like for the people most impacted by the threat against federal protection of safe abortions — oppressed and marginalized people, survivors of the prevalent sexual violence culture in the United States, and poor women, girls and queer people without access to autonomous medical care?
What would happen if we, those who believe in safety, embodied autonomy and care for all humans, collectively recognized what it means being on the edge?
I hope that when future generations tell the story of what happened between May Day and Mother’s Day in 2022, they remember that a large coalition of people, emboldened by love, came together to protect each other Beyond fear and shame. This is a love song and prayer.
Edges
The black becoming the morning after in the blue
The toilet stall in white becomes pink
The still raised red the heat from fresh slapped faces
The metal slot on a locked drugstore door
The papercut of peace denied
The growl that the car makes just before it dies
The grazing dress on grateful thighs
The salted corner of your day-stretched eyes
The fast-eroding sand is becoming sea
The temple closest to the fraying hairs
The names of gods you call when no one is listening
Keep the tether around your ankle so you don’t drown
The punch of a breaching whale in cannon-breath
the carbon glut that means the ocean’s death
The best way to keep your child out of school
The line between fools and jokers
The bleaching coral before it browns
Your town’s reputation is at risk
The worn-out name for more falling out of teeth
The flammable dryness in your Christmas wreath
The hourly bedroom, the itching bed
The hand-torn crust communion loaf
Keep, the telling and untelling
The grassy heap smells like a landfill
The hand to hold, the fearful fist
The most difficult three-fourths in a year
The thickest part of your blood
The meaning of the county line
The place where plants learn how to grow sideways
The place where the murderous coyote attempts to corner the roadrunner
The moment he realizes that the grounded bird is gone
ACME’s approach to weapons
The rash on the bracelet before it turns to green
The species’s last gasp before it melts.
Last day of the unpaid monthly month
The rented dawn
The secret spawn senators were sent to quiet
The diet of stamps
The street lamps that leak and promise to take you home
The sportswear that is to blame
the child-locked car we’re already inside
The shotgun tasting
The pharmacy cake
The voice at the bottom
The impossible is possible in wellness
The sticky-hand permission slips
The hole where the twist lock doorknob was once located
You learn by the twitch in your mouth
The moment monsters don family skin
the wet of preacher’s mouth when his subject turns to sin
The third baptism
The last confession
The grout between tiles on the floor
The only store open
The standby flight
The stranger couch
The night before was a sleepless one
The insulting absurdity of every dream
the unaffordable more
The polluted shore
The forgotten birthday
The person behind your blink
The sink that is clogged with stubble
The choking garden
The white-collar Pardon
The hole in holy war
The final before
The bolt-cut locker
The untreated sore
The moment he took the hinges off of the door
The repacked bag
the dragging heels
The soles that have been scraped
The yard-sale stroller
Parking lot dandelion
Stains that can be cleaned only with dry-clean
The sharpened pencil teacher you told
The red pen of one who already knew
They cancelled the daddy-daughter lock-in at the church in spring
the can’t remember days before graduation
the can’t forgets
Please wait!
The night when the moon disappears
The terrifyingly fertile years
The pinstriped wink is visible through the window
Mars’ soft landing spots
The quiet electric backseat escape cars
The afterschool sound barrier
The bus transfer expired
The rising cost for over-the counter concealer
The tab for florists
The back make-up date:
The not yet visible weight
The purple eye
The painted lip
Weekend trips: The trashed receipts
The hotel lotion
The bitter, tepid tea of prayer
Addendum to the nondisclosure agreement
The password to the burner account to make money transfers.
The billboard exit at the highway where God starts to need advertising
The last vaquita’s throat was sliced by the gillnet
The day you realize that no amount french fries will satisfy this hunger
The speech ends with a thank you to our veterans for their willingness to die.
The last note of any song about freedom is the one you hear.
the hour they start to play the “Cosby” reruns
The dotted lines on coupons in your grocery store app
The feathery feel before the softness of a T-shirt is transformed into hole
the phlegm of the lurking troll saying ‘you shall not pass’
Penicillin’s sell-by date
The inches oceans need to rise
The degrees of heat that the sky is before convection occurs
The quick affection of despair
The tucking of your hair behind your ears
The ridge at the end of your shoe that cuts your swell
The spell with the missing word
The shoal with broken bottles
Your secrets are hidden behind the walls and staircases
The places where skin loses its color
The exact amount of blood you can shed and still be able to breathe
When you leave, the exact ratio of sharp to blunt words
the heartbeats between May Day and Mother’s
The pronunciation of justice
the number of i’s in opinion
Repetition of s in dissension
Keep your name out!
The part of the key that can be cut
The overlap of memory and dream
The gut elbow rhythm is again
The shelf where dystopia is sold as nonfiction
The need
The light
The right
The day
