Saturday, June 24, 2023

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


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


AddedThis 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


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

1 comment:

  1. Fore more about The Niagara 2020 Declaration, listen to CBC's Front Burner, June 5, titled "Inside the fundamentalist Christian movement that wants to remake Canadian politics," and its full-text transcript can be accessed at https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/inside-the-fundamentalist-christian-movement-that-wants-to-remake-canadian-politics-transcript-1.6865959

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