Across the Street
A prose poem I wrote about yesterday. Gender, politics, and religion, as well as abortion and violence/death content.
Across the Street
In the snow and icy wind, we stood on opposite sides of the street. I stood on the side of the clinic where a man's bomb had killed a guard and maimed a nurse ten years ago. I stood with a few of my friends, wearing layers of clothing against the cold and bright orange vests to identify us: CLINIC ESCORT.
There were more of them on the other side of the street: men with signs, men fumbling with rosaries, men screaming that we were cold-blooded murderers. They were almost all men, and only with their words were they brave enough to cross the street.
The police came up and down the street in their cars, watching our side of the street and theirs. One of their own died here, on our side of the street, killed by a bomb packed with nails.
The Catholics prayed their rosaries, Our Fathers and Hail Marys, leaving out any mention of Mary's womb. They yelled that we would go to hell, but I prayed from my side of the street too. My prayers reach God just as well, pushing their way up through the wind and the snow and the steel-grey clouds that hang over my city's iron mountains.
The police crossed the street with two German shepherds to sniff around the building and the cars in the parking lot. I stomped my boots and tried to trust that God caught my prayers, even from this side of the street. The dogs found no bombs this time.
The clinic director crossed the street to the Greek cafe behind the screamers and the praying Catholics. She crossed back to our side with cups of coffee for everyone. I drank mine down, burning my mouth, black and bitter, just to feel my body again, coated in snow but slightly warmer.
The snow kept falling, and the Catholics got in their cars and drove home through the slush without crossing the street. The screamers stayed, and their signs with photographs of dismembered fetuses, pictures as old as Roe v. Wade.
A family crossed the street from the parking lot up the block: father, mother, daughter, baby--in the snow. I wanted to offer the children the warmth of the clinic's lobby, but I knew they would never cross to our side of the street.
One of us in an orange vest crossed the street to give the little girl, no more than four years old, a green balloon that said "Pro-Choice." The mother took it and stomped on it, and by the time the escort crossed back to our side, mother had daughter shouting "Don't kill your babies!" over and over. The child's speech was so mechanical I knew she had no concept of all the things those words meant.
We all crossed the street for lunch and hot coffee in the warmth of the Greek cafe, where we took turns thawing our hands under the faucets in the bathrooms. We weren't cold-blooded killers; the cold stung us as much as them.
Across the Street
In the snow and icy wind, we stood on opposite sides of the street. I stood on the side of the clinic where a man's bomb had killed a guard and maimed a nurse ten years ago. I stood with a few of my friends, wearing layers of clothing against the cold and bright orange vests to identify us: CLINIC ESCORT.
There were more of them on the other side of the street: men with signs, men fumbling with rosaries, men screaming that we were cold-blooded murderers. They were almost all men, and only with their words were they brave enough to cross the street.
The police came up and down the street in their cars, watching our side of the street and theirs. One of their own died here, on our side of the street, killed by a bomb packed with nails.
The Catholics prayed their rosaries, Our Fathers and Hail Marys, leaving out any mention of Mary's womb. They yelled that we would go to hell, but I prayed from my side of the street too. My prayers reach God just as well, pushing their way up through the wind and the snow and the steel-grey clouds that hang over my city's iron mountains.
The police crossed the street with two German shepherds to sniff around the building and the cars in the parking lot. I stomped my boots and tried to trust that God caught my prayers, even from this side of the street. The dogs found no bombs this time.
The clinic director crossed the street to the Greek cafe behind the screamers and the praying Catholics. She crossed back to our side with cups of coffee for everyone. I drank mine down, burning my mouth, black and bitter, just to feel my body again, coated in snow but slightly warmer.
The snow kept falling, and the Catholics got in their cars and drove home through the slush without crossing the street. The screamers stayed, and their signs with photographs of dismembered fetuses, pictures as old as Roe v. Wade.
A family crossed the street from the parking lot up the block: father, mother, daughter, baby--in the snow. I wanted to offer the children the warmth of the clinic's lobby, but I knew they would never cross to our side of the street.
One of us in an orange vest crossed the street to give the little girl, no more than four years old, a green balloon that said "Pro-Choice." The mother took it and stomped on it, and by the time the escort crossed back to our side, mother had daughter shouting "Don't kill your babies!" over and over. The child's speech was so mechanical I knew she had no concept of all the things those words meant.
We all crossed the street for lunch and hot coffee in the warmth of the Greek cafe, where we took turns thawing our hands under the faucets in the bathrooms. We weren't cold-blooded killers; the cold stung us as much as them.