Poem About My Grandma, Circa 1910

First appeared in Lake

For some, it takes too much thinking.
You try to gather your courage
and look down the craw of the law.

For some, there’s no choice;
not enough money, not enough food,
no partner, no parents, plenty of poor.

Climb onto the kitchen table,
hide the other kids in the closet;
fetch the knitting needle,

flame it on the stove;
the turkey baster hot from the pot,
the warm towel from the line.

Do the deed,
the white rag packing the wound,
leave a trail of blood—

to the outhouse, if you’re lucky,
or hospital with its sulfurous wards—
then the next step may be the grave.

For my grandma, it was one, then another,
then another—no birth control allowed.
A legion of babies; half born alive and half made dead.

For some, here we go again.

Laura Celise Lippman