Dying In A Bucket

A mere carrying never makes a mother.

A gynecologist
observes soft
feminine rhythms
on a monitor.

Currency conceals compassion.

Hospital sweeper
carries remnants
of a plastic love in
his black bucket.
His squint-eyes
are conditioned.
Pulses pause
unnoticed in the
bucket. Just two
hundred rupees
bury his conscience.
He seeks shelter in
a dark arrack bottle.

It’s a cold-blooded
secret that people
seem not to see.

Abortion is an accepted murder.

First published in The Literary Hatchet, issue #16, US.