Planned Parenthood Saturday Mornings

Josie is back, skin pasty pale from
hours of Bible study (indoors, he hides from the eye of God),
chatting aimlessly with Aussie Hat Man,
who sometimes violently pauses their conversation
like some rabid VCR
yodelling a “Hail Mary” or “Pater Nos”
in the phlegmatic voice of an opera singer,
struggling to be heard over
the screech and clatter
of someone’s mother’s bullhorn.

Today, they’re out in numbers,
undeterred by the torrential downpour
            (“I hope their houses flooded!” whispers my partner)
that washed itself away, leaving uncertain blue sky,
clouds like shrugged shoulders.

Once
I saw someone (in that garage) with a baseball cap and
shiny object in his hands ducking
behind a pillar.
I cringed inside, ready to cover my face with my hands
to stop the
            bone-shattering bullet.
It was only Josie, wielding his camera
like a weapon, threatening the lives of those
he could not save.

I hear they call us “deathscorts.”

The cops brought donuts.
Today they’re on our side and we on theirs
despite a past including shoving matches, bricks through windows,
the pigs! going limp (we have some original ‘60s fighters, here).
“Fuck you,” mutters our supervisor under her breath,
as the fundies start their cheerful pace,
encroaching on the Catholics, the holier-than debate
made weird by familiarity.

The one we call “Pedophile” drops to his knees,
howls an impassioned plea for justice and
            makes the sign of the cross in holy water;
the others bay in an animal voice.

A hardy black girl screams at them
when she walks to the bus down
            what should be empty street: Why can’t you understand
a woman’s right to own her own body?
Through the megaphone they answer, “Your body belongs to God.”

Later, I find
the antonyms of “save” are:
abandon, attack, surrender,
confine, detain,
imprison, shackle, enslave.