the lost poem

07/06/97

I lost an abortion poem 
it was stolen like the memory could not be 
each line had either a butcher knife, 
or a sterile clause in it 
and I wonder what the thieves, 
those nightmare night runners 
probably boiling over 
in adolescence and premature manhood, 
thought of what I bought and paid for with those 
thirty pieces of silver 
I stopped my motherhood with