Paul Groves
Abomination
To disobstetricate: the vilest verb in the language,
meaning to hinder childbirth, as might the régime’s
red-eyed henchman, a devil minus exposed fangs
and forked tail. It has happened; and the word
has found its way into our vocabulary, albeit
with a rarefied, scholastic air. Somewhere history
is rotten with it: a woman at full term tied to a table,
thighs strapped together, her baby aching to enter
this evil world. I quickly turn the dictionary’s pages,
seeking relief, a Tudor squire sniffing a pomander
as he passes an open sewer. But the coined cannot be
uninvented, the discovered returned to its realm
of ignorance. Were I less inured to the centuries’ dross
and less acceptant of man’s awfulness, I would weep
like Salix babylonica, the Chinese willow.
Page(s) 55
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