Woman of flame, Roe v. Wade.
She was a mother.
She was a girl who dreamed of becoming a mother someday.
She was either a tease or a tramp, a lover or a wife.
Still she had to do the counting.
Was accused of lacking spontaneity,
being a cold bitch.
But if the days didn't add up, she'd
end up straddling a cold table in a dingy back room,
or waving, goodbye future.
She was jogging on the late shift.
Unlocking her car.
And though she still remembered the tart smack of his sweat
when he held her down, horseradish on his tongue,
none of this was she permitted to say.
While lawyers argued her rights to privacy,
citing statute and precedent, until the court declared,
enough.
And she and her body were free to go.
But it wasn't enough.