and someone hands me a clipboard
asking me to list date & outcome
for each one of my pregnancies.

It was back in the 50's — I was fifteen —
but it was completely legal,
because I was upper middle class.

The two requisite psychiatrists
concurred I was crazy,
so I could go to a good hospital.

Masked men painted the insides
of my thighs bright red. Afterwards
I screamed in my private room.
I wanted to die.
People are dying here, said the nurse,
and I knew she hated me. Later

my father sat in a straight chair
by the railed hospital bed
and tried to teach me to play bridge.

He had put himself through law school
on poker and bridge. I never learned
to play any card game but Go Fish.