Reading Paul Muldoon this afternoon
I thought of you for no reason.
It wasn’t your birthday, not
that you celebrate them where you are,
nor the anniversary of the day you died.
And it certainly was not because
I was reading about Ireland since
I never imagined I had Irish blood, and
you never went there, and when I did
I didn’t know you existed save
in the mirror and my double helix world.
I often think about you now, as I age
an know how different things would be
if you had options available to you then,
what other decisions you might have made,
some, for me, momentous, existential
and yet I still believe a woman’s body
should be her own to control and
from what I know of you and your nieces
you would agree with my position