Preamble

Tonight I wear red in support of my feminist sisters,
the Radical Handmaids, who gathered today on Parliament Hill
in opposition to Motion 312 which re-opens the abortion debate
tomorrow afternoon in the House of Commons.
And I share this poem.

Birthing change

1

Once upon a time his blue eyes dazzled her
maiden dreams           led her down dirt
roads, onto prairie trails, into abandoned
houses, churches, barns, unwittingly
preparing her for an entry that quivered her world,
sent her solo, pink-slipped, and with a growing belly
to face family, to seek and not find
solace in a religion she turned upside-down and inside-out.

2

His greenbacks, her choice:
law-breaker.  One little lie dupes doctors, the system.

How can she live knowing sin in so many ways, knowing nothing
will ever be the same?

3

She clings to the shiver of ecstasy
builds another world      in her mind other
possibilities, dreams.  How she clings, still.

4

He drove her to the streets.

5

She found circles of women singing
bread and roses, chanting in the streets
The personal is political!

Community, like a blanket, receiving,
bearing witness, holding,
keeping faith.

c. Bernadette L. Wagner