Geraldine
“Gerri” Santoro
lies face down
dead, bloody, open, nude
on the bedside motel carpet
and in the pages of Ms:
this is the cost of abortion prohibition.
twenty nine years later, her hour comes again
the bell has been unstruck, the boulder rolled away.
Harun and Jaafar open a chest and find her there
a body, split in pieces, wrapped in a blanket, thrown into the returning sea.

The night grows short. “The strangest tale!” says Dinarzad. “Give me another night,” says Sharazad, “and I will tell you stranger.”

The effective minimum wage peaked in nineteen sixty three
and has been steadily declining with every decade
wages worn away through inflation, robbery, racism
each generation told things can’t be better
your parents did better, your children
will do worse; you watch
as the ocean slowly,
insistently, deliberately eats
away the
shore