Issue 18 / Summer 2019 / Abortion Ban Protest Special Issue

Drag me through muddy waters

to cleanse me of his toxins, more

sacred now than ever.

But as this tadpole squirms while

the rice collects bad spirits in a jar,

just remember that we still have

blood—blood that could’ve breathed

air had its infant gills not failed to open in

my body.

Misti Vaughn is the Assistant Director of the nonprofit organization, The American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology. Her poems have recently been published in the Bravura Literary Journal, and she is the two-time recipient of the Angelo Carli Poetry Prize.