a poem by Betsy Fogelman Tighe
Note: this poem discusses abortion
Years later, I confessed; my mother
hurt I hadn’t trusted her to take me
to the clinic where the fetus
would be flushed,
to drive me home, woozy & deflated,
to tuck me in bed with soup and crackers
and, if not the comics of childish illness,
a fashion rag to teach about beauty and entrapment.
Men are visual, everyone knows that.
The father preferred a small, firm-breasted woman,
and found my father righteous when he refused
to see me until I was 25 pounds lighter.
I still wish that baby back,
40 now, and a mother herself, who would
phone every Sunday, the kids thrashing
about in the background, laughing, so loud,
I can hardly hear what she needs to whisper.
Hear Betsy read her poem:
Betsy Fogelman Tighe, winner of a 2025 Pushcart, has published widely, winning two Oregon Poetry Association prizes, been a semi-finalist for two manuscript prizes and the Loraine Williams Prize. She recently retired from work as a teacher-librarian in Portland, Oregon, where she also gardens and dotes on two adult children.
Image: Abstract weed by Leiada Krozhjen
Such a powerful memory of what would have been an agonizing decision - mourning even those many years later the possible relationship with that child.
So thought-provoking, difficult, and powerful.