A Room of My Own: Fetal Heartbeat Haiku

written on the one-year anniversary of Roe v Wade overturned

fetal heartbeat ...

a teen stares at Florida's skies

from the clinic window

FYI: A six-week abortion ban or early abortion ban, called a "heartbeat bill" or "fetal heartbeat bill" by proponents, is a form of abortion restriction legislation in the United States. 

And Spiegel International, June 21: A Road Trip through Trump's America

Twenty-six states are led by Republican governors, and in 29, the party has a "super majority" in the state legislature, meaning there is essentially no opposition. 

This haiku is a sequel to my haiku sequence:

First Post-Roe Independence Day

slanted light

the rise and fall

of her belly

unbroken heat

an 800-mile road trip

to the clinic

firework-lit sky

in the cheap motel window

a dream deferred 

UnbornLivesMatter

blood-scrawled on the entrance

silence between us

what ifs ....

return trip from the clinic

in gathering dark

NeverEnding Story, July 1 2022

For more, see my tanka sequence, Roe v. Wade, then and now, and to be continued ... , published on June 25, 2022, one day after Roe v Wade overturned

Added: This Brave New World, XC

for LGBTQ+ activists in the USA and in memory of my friend, Brian Zimmer

the largest Pride March

winds its way down Fifth Avenue

through the West Village 

and stops at the Stonewall Inn ...

two white-haired men French-kissing

FYI: The Stonewall Inn, New York is a gay bar & National Historic Landmark, site of the 1969 riots that launched the gay rights movement in the USA.

Brian posted the following Pride Parade (in Canada, Pride March in New York) tanka on Twitter on June 12, 2014, and he passed away on November 5th.

Gay Pride Parade

I live to see the day 

a cop 

greets his boyfriend 

with a kiss on the street 

I translated his tanka into Chinese and published it on NeverEnding Story on June 5, 2021

Added: This Brave New World, XCI

a teen sticks out her tongue

...then sucked in by another 

Pride March past the church

FYI: Global News, June 22: Inside Norwich, an Ontario town at war with a church ‘controlling’ its citizens

Netherlands Reformed Congregation is one of signatories of The Niagara 2020 Declaration: on the Liberties of the [Fundamentalist, anti-LGBTQ+] Church in Canada from Sea to Sea

And  CTV News, June 5: "Pride events in Canada facing higher safety and security costs, feds offer $1.5M"

Every day, we witness attacks in person at events and online targeting community leaders, event organizers, elected representatives, venues, artists and performers, families and young people.

-- Fierté Canada Pride, the National Association of Canadian Pride Organizations