Seeing Red

Her face is crimson,

spaghetti sauce and strawberry purée Pollocked across both cheeks

highchair smeared with baby handprints

like a talcum-covered car bumper pushed

in neutral by tiny phantom hands across

Crybaby Bridge.

The Texas newscaster steels her jaw,

ruby red lips parsed,

as she reports an 11-year-old survived

by smearing her dead friend’s blood across her face

playing dead like a opossum while police twiddled thumbs

and children smudged

their final bloody palms against the linoleum floors

crying out for their mothers

My god,

how I fear for her future—

In Walmart, wire hangers are on clearance

discarding corporate culpability

formula aisles are still empty

condoms and Plan B under lock and key,

pharmacists deny birth control refills

as women’s bodies are

dissected like a game of

Operation

Red states electrifying

the scarlet nose of Cavity Sam

as men poke and prod

plucking

those surgical tweezers

between our organs

stripping back the flesh

of sovereignty—

Less autonomy than a corpse

consenting to organ donation.

America slips into recession

while less than 20 percent of women

have access to paid maternity leave.

64 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck—

Only 53 percent of Americans can handle a

$500 emergency without worry.

The average cost of an abortion is $500 before travel.

In Ohio, legislators denied an abortion

to a 10-year-old rape victim,

a child

forced to carry a child

before the blood of her first period

a child

forced to cross state lines for an abortion

a child

Uncle Sam, your hands are soiled

Blood stained

That accusatory finger pointed

deflecting moral responsibility

Our babies born addicted to fear of babies*

            America,

            when will our children

            be children again?

*A line from Kaveh Akbar’s poem, “The Palace.”