Statistics

by Jane Rosenberg LaForge


Courtesy of the institute 
that wouldn’t take my call

about the one dead woman
from a procedure half a century

earlier because she was an aunt
to no one. History registers only

in terabytes, in epiphanies
and readily identifiable wallops, 

how the number of women seeking
to end pregnancies was small,

even manageable, so long as it
was only for the life of the mother.

This is what my mother meant 
when she cried out, “Don’t be

a statistic, Janey,” because
studies show it is better

to break a surface directly,
rather than to poke blindly;

a push is more organic
than a vacuum or a pump;

a pile of dead skin is preferable
to a pitted face, or uterus.

Now, on to the scars.


* * * * *

Jane Rosenberg LaForge writes poetry, fiction, and occasional essays in New York. Her third full-length poetry collection is Medusa's Daughter from Animal Heart Press in February 2021. Her second novel is Sisterhood of the Infamous New Meridian Arts, also in February 2021. Her first novel, The Hawkman: A Fairy Tale of the Great War (Amberjack Publishing), was a finalist in two categories in the 2019 Eric Hoffer Awards. Her poetry has recently or will appear in 8Poems, Thorn literary magazine, Feral, Cease, Cows, and Fevers of the Mind.