Hangers
You know it’s always been a long game
that they have been playing
but it still jars you to see it unravel
in its crippling
authoritarian cruelty.
The lower court cases that they have been harboring.
The clinics they closed.
The women they harassed.
It has been there brewing around you slowly
like a fetid stew
boiling down to this moment
where a new justice
will be appointed to the highest court in the land.
And he
because we know
as we have always known
it will be a
he
will overturn your rights
in the name of
all the righteous rage
they can summon.
They will turn your body into your enemy
as it is there enemy
because it was never about the fetus
and always about keeping
women down
out of work
out of the rooms where decisions are made
out of control
You remember the wire hangers.
You remember all the death.
You feel it on the horizon coming for you
its breath warm against your skin.
You do not look at your sisters.
You do not want to think about
who will die first.
--Ally Malinenko
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