Mentress Moon - Michaela A Gabriel

Abortion

Gloved hands take her from me
in a room with silent walls.
Clusters of screams hang in corners,
scarlet and fierce.

A violent artificial sun
burns all hope to pale cinders,
dries up each drop of milk,
eclipses the fish's face inside me.

I awake from dreamless sleep
to the coldness of everything white:
walls, blankets, the women like corpses
on deathbeds not their own.

A nurse urges me to talk;
her red lipstick offends me.
I crave dark colours, a weeping
winter sky, a black cat's pelt.

Clutching my bundle of clothes,
I watch blood trickle
from my empty body
and fail to understand.

you lived, nightblind,
in that state where love
was the great absent deity
that only you believed in.
you left no stone unturned,
and stumbled over each.

you had them all:
the crazies, the handsome,
the rough ones, even the shy.
they didn't need to flatter you:
you were beautiful,
especially in the mornings.

the few who noticed
returned briefly, though
they carried no flowers,
just scented condoms, assorted colours.

Michaela A Gabriel, born in 1971, lives in Vienna, Austria, where she works as a web designer. A passionate traveller and Michaela A Gabriel, photo

"communication junkie", she needs people, music and books. Nobody has been able to stop her since she wrote her first poem at 13. Preferring English to German, about 95% of her poetry is not written in her mother tongue. She has been published in The Horsethief Journal, Gangway, Poetry Niederngasse, The Writers Quill, The Green Tricycle and other magazines. Since September 1999 she has been the editor of the German issue of Poetry Niederngasse.