No Choice

It was the summer of 1975 
Bellevue Hospital, New York City
when I got the call to visit
a patient on the GYN floor.
She was young – late teens or
early twenties - my age.
We did not have long to talk.

When her parents kicked her out
she moved to the city with her boyfriend.
They did okay until she announced 
that she was pregnant.
She did not expect rejoicing
but after the beating he gave her
she knew she had no choice.

No money
no one to turn to 
no one to tell her about Roe v. Wade
or legalized abortion
she broke the neck off a Coke bottle
and thrust it up inside herself hard again and again
until it tore her flesh.

When the bleeding did not stop
she came to the ER.
The doctors tried but 
could not repair the damage.
I could only listen, hold
her hand until she died  
and weep.
 

Marie C. Jerge is a retired Pastor and Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) who continues to serve as a spiritual director. She has had poems published in The Healing Muse. She gives thanks for her Poetry as Spiritual Practice writing group in Syracuse, New York where she lives with her husband, Jim.