Love Abortion

All my loves, you were like my unborn children.

Each time I regret somewhat
the onslaught of your absence. Wondering
what fledgling love
lays smashed and decaying moments after conception,
and why I glow each time with new-found pregnant sweetness
and why I hold my belly and laugh
before I’m even showing?
Each time still eyeing the penciled-in appointment
urging the days to leak out from under me.

But, still I do not waver; I have guarded against my own ambivalence.
And each time I have no choice but
to tear you from myself and sit alone,
eating nothing and clutching my empty belly,
and curse that I allowed our fetal love to expand so violently.

You, my quiescent offspring, denied gestation,
for whom I endure the empty gestures
of appointments and loss
in exchange for a few moments respite
from my barren nighttimes,
I am always sorry now. Always wondering what
your name would have been what
kind of creature you could have become.

So, sweet boys, my sympathies
go out to you for I will remove you all before you take
too strongly. Not without regret, mind you,
but I quarantine my mourning.