Koi Pond by Isra Cheema
Koi Pond
Isra Cheema
This poem was first published in Ghost City Press
TW: Abortion
Look down and see your unborn baby
floating in the middle of the toilet
bowl—you see it spin slowly
like a lone koi fish, it’s soft pinked
flesh swirling in a murky pond
of blood clot-lily pads.
You were driving and pulled
over to throw up from the lightning
-strike explosion of sharp pain
in your uterus—you vomited into
a crumpled Walmart bag as the car
inched towards someone’s mailbox.
Feel the liquid warmth gush out of you,
life ejected, no—rejected from your
body, that life-giver. Peer closer at it,
that…
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