After the Overturn of Roe v. Wade,
June 24th, 2022
New York Harbor has shoved itself inside me.
Swallowed Emma Lazarus’ bronze words
in reverse:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!…
..The wretched refuse of your teeming shore…
…glows world-wide welcome, her mild eyes command…
…Mother of exiles, from her beacon hand…
Tourists cling to the folds of my robe.
Mothers. Fathers. Sticky-handed toddlers.
Seagulls float on the flotsam, pluck soggy hotdogs
out of sodden buns. We are buffeted by trash.
And still the water rises.
Past my hips, my breasts. It creeps
up the column of my throat, laps
at my welded lips.
The tourists are gripping the roots of my hair.
The spikes of my crown. The Coast Guard
blares their horns.
I do not have lungs,
but I ache for air.
Somewhere, someone is gasping. Pounding
her head against her pillow. Her husband
shakes her. Yells, Wakeup!Wakeup!Wakeup!
Her eyes are harbor-blue.
Lauren WB Vermette is an ink-slinger who makes her home in Dover, NH. Her work has appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Global Poemic, Hole in the Head Review, Rat’s Ass Review Journal, and Sledgehammer. Her first collection of poetry, And The Form Falls Away (2018), was published by Bee Monk Press.
