Everything’s gripped inside someone else
it feels in the weeks after the body’s stopped
and the drugs do not expel the embryo,
it holds on with what’s left of its
ghost-fingers, and refuses to let go
until the surgeon comes to pry it free.

Everything’s inside something, woman in
room, thoughts in head, bed in
ward. Everything’s inside, and I can’t decide
if this is a good thing or not.

But it’s neither, “of course”, good nor bad,
as the surgeon comes and loosens out
the body. No longer inside,
but outside, of nothing. Destroyed or never
there. Floating. In my head, at least,

a thought, at least. Across the way, a baby
cries, a sound so ordinary. All so ordinary,
inside. It’s only what’s outside that must be let free.