XX

HER

& ME

& BABY

MAKES THREE

(belated burial)

bye bye baby

bye bye

you won't cry baby

know why

from your mother's womb

you were 'untimely ripped'

so it's R.I.P.

no crib but a crypt

sleep now baby

bye bye

it's only an Abortion

Lullaby

...

your mother said it was a big mistake

because you were unplanned

like most of us

an accidental miracle

but Christ there must have been some Passion once

one brief moment of surrender

you took your opportunity

to find a home

and you clung onto life

it was a fight

swimming against the tide

survivor of a shipwreck in the night

one chance in millions

courageous wee fish

my tadpole prince

you just did what you had to

to survive

no blood came with the moon

and soon there was sickness everyday

we knew you were in there

you'd not let us forget

I said say yes to life

let nature take its   course

the seed the fruit

her belly growing plump

buxom her bosom

swelling full of milk

but she was always flirting with death

right from the start

anything to do with life was wrong

falling

pregnant

living in sin

not all that original

why not rise

in procreation

regenesis this generation

me and you were happy to continue

innocent at play

in the Garden of Eden

you were as yet inchoate

half-formed evolving

somewhere between

rough draft and fair copy

but you had potential

validity and value

as much as her and me

you needed us to be

m or f the gender didn't matter

I only wanted you to be alive

intact undamaged from your passage

out of that dark tunnel into light

we came so close

I felt you in her

she saw the scan

there is no photo

...

your bloody birth was the death of you

I need a midwife to deliver me

of this bereavement

the abrupt transition

from gravid to grave

your time came too soon

womb and tomb in one dead season

slaughtered rhythm rhyme and reason

how can I aestheticize that pain

as if it's war photography

my brave unnamed soldier

a corpse become a pleasing composition

in grainy black and white

the general anaesthetic has worn off

the wound is tender red and raw

this subject sore to touch

you were near enough

to the legal limit

to make it much more

than a heavy period

nipped in the bud poor little flower

grim reaper got you prematurely

dismiss it as a Termination

or christen it with some new name

a gentle euphemism makes the nasty nice

maybe different words can mean the same

my baby her baby our baby whose

who threw the deciding dice

when we all stood to lose

who won

when baby she and me

each lost each other

it is a woman's right to choose

I had no choice

you had no voice to use

I lost the baby and the mother

I'm lost too

my baby died

my loved one left

and I am left not quite alive

five months gone

she went

the milk of human kindness

curdled in her breast

she might have wept in secret

there was no regret expressed

now there's me and a gap

where my baby used to be

unbridgeable the distance

between life and non-existence

you didn't stay

nor did you fully go away

your ghost still haunts me everyday

we never said goodbye

at least not properly

you didn't even get a decent burial

...

you would be talking by now

I wonder what you'd say

to your mother and your father

if you could speak today

I'd dearly love to believe

you've gone to a better place

beyond the Milky Way

free at last in space

here between these sheets

stained with blood and semen

how can I ever conceive

of another gestation again

how can I anaesthetize that pain

I cry baby

I cry

we all die baby

bye bye

sing me an Abortion

sing me an Abortion

sing me an Abortion

Lullaby

XX

bye

Davy King

photo-diagram of female foetus at 5 months

The legal limit for abortion in the UK is currently 24 WEEKS

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