Soul Sepsis

He rapes her
He is the father
12 years old
Must she be a mother?

Her baby unviable slowly dying
His ruptured membranes
Spreading poison
Burning, supine his mother lying.

But all the doctors can prescribe
Antibiotics they know are ineffective,
As long as the little heart keeps beating
Can't expedite and terminate
The germ of life
So they feed her placebos with their lies.

Now the mother fights her agonizing fate
O life beautiful, leave not,
But not yet
It's not my time to go
Not my fault, oh no
Don't condemn me
By the decree
Of your blind faith.

Even the nascent soul agrees
Mummy I let go
I have found my wings!

It's not your fault
If they only let you live
I would forgive,
Please believe.

Don't impose your cloistered beliefs
On my sweet mother
Whose life whittles away,
Our septic mottled dreams
Merge together,
Together...
I don't want this septic shroud
For you, my Mother.

Now the genie's unbottled
Unborn baby
Your sweet face unseen
Oblivion's arms caress us
No one knows
what could have been.

Perhaps mercy on a mother
Would have permitted
Your soul's arc 
In sweet return
But men must play God
While I burn, burn, burn.

This is another bride, somewhere, 
Say in India,
Her husband scorns birth control
Rapes countless on her marriage bed
Babies born a swollen incubator's cavalcade
Now she is pregnant yet again,
In middle age
Against her wish
Old out, worn out, torn out
Tired to her core, sold out...
Pity that woman
And pity her midwife's
Bloodied thankless chore.
For the doctors will show
Her to the door.

Every baby deserves it
Growing in safety
To be the Apple of
Mother's eye.

But oh sweet baby
I bid you goodbye
This once

God be with ye
For a child woman cannot be a mother
Not a trampled mangled addled crone
Care for ye.

The child who was not yet
At 17 weeks whose growth spurt
Cut short,
In tenderness conceived,
Destined to be lost,
Realized that his time was spent
Raised eye buds to heaven
Praised the Lord,
His Father heard said Amen.

And recalled him
While puny doctors labored
To preserve a ghost.

Meanwhile,
The living Madonna
Unconscious paled into blue rigid corpse...
Such was a pro life victory,
Love's labor lost,

The cost of a woman,
A sister, wife, a mother,
A daughter lost.

All women are called
To account
Stop martyring your sex
Like ever watchful hounds.
The living pound
Of Most Holy flesh
Which she renounced,
And for which you so chastise,
Was far too dearly bought
And it was her own heartbeat
Her dreaming blood,
Her very life.

(c) Amrita Valan 2016