The Clinic - Draft 2

[milo]

Hello stephanie. This seems to be a poem about an abortion or a hysterectomy. The format is free verse in couplets. It is written in first person present tense. The primary poetic device seems to be symbolism but for the most part it is unintentionally ambiguous symbolism.

This is my second draft. I think I have followed the forum editing procedure correctly but please let me know if I have made a mistake.
Thank you again for all your feedback so far, it is so, so helpful.


Draft 2

The Clinic Take Note

Because there is no one to tell
and even if there were I can’t

find the words to explain 2:30 am
on Saturday night, the snow white

walls of the clinic are the closest
I get to comfort. A nurse scolds me

This opening statement is written backwards for some reason. When rearranged in the more normal syntax we get, "the . . . Walls of the clinic are the closest I get to comfort because there is no one to tell"
This idea is never really developed or explained but just kind of abandoned.

Why "snow" white? It is cliché and are we to guess that this is santa clause's baby? What is the significance of 2:30 am on Saturday night? And why night and not morning? There is subject/ verb disagreement between "there is no one" and "there were".

for not coming sooner, holds a coil
like a talisman, my final chance

to prevent a magic I do not wish.
She does not tell me the Dr

will hook me with a needle
to fit the contraption, which will

coil, talisman, chance, wish, magic, hook - perhaps this is a demon baby? It is not quite clear.

refuse passage to it’s new home
until they force it’s copper curl

"it's" seems to lack a proper antecedent. Is it the needle? Is it the contraption? Refuse passage? Much of this is confused by deliberately oblique language.

to pierce my cervix like a pocket knife
pressing it’s sharp silver. A wee weapon

here is where the antecedent and structure problems reall come to a head. Something (it) has had passage to its new home refused and now strikes back by piercing your cervix?

nipping at each secret step I take
to cover up the tracks I did not choose to make.

So this mysterious "it" that has been refused passage is attacking your cervix while you are busy taking secret steps to cover up tracks that you accidentally made?

Honestly, this reads like a mess though a slightly humourous one. It reads terribly fake for a first person account and the language is trying too hard to be poetic while falling quite flat.

Good luck.

Thanks for posting.