To Virginia, Lucia & Sylvia
There is no doubt. Had I lived
when any of you lived,
I would have been committed
to an asylum. My first husband ordered
a psych consult when I knew
I needed an abortion, though his
family kept his uncles’ diagnoses
from me. No one listened
but I knew the truth. My daughter
would be born ill. The fire raged
in my brain while I was
carrying her. Alone, abandoned
in the countryside unable to drive.
Lied to more each day.
Alone with only books, music,
and the dog who sensed danger.
With all my education —
my shelves and shelves of books,
my two degrees, I shrank into oblivion
as he lied and hid my pathology
report from me. A surgeon, he ensured
surgeons would have to cut me.
I quieted my voice until
I was silent so I know how you hurt
and were harmed. Without my little
white pills, and my notebooks,
he would have managed to bury me.
Would have played the grieving widower,
held my sobbing daughter over
my closed coffin, covered with white tulips.