Before Roe
Before Roe
By Peter Neil Carroll
My girlfriend was late. We
were not promiscuous, very
cautious, too young
to indulge freely,
but so much temptation
lay ahead, her lace,
her satin, my ’56 Buick
convertible, the back seat.
An older friend gave us
chuckled warnings, asked
between snide lips how many
days, which days, Saturdays?
We had reason to worry.
We were normal, healthy,
knew only what we knew
next to nothing.
Now what would we do, what
could we do? Whatever our
plans, we had to stop.
Wait. Count.
The future also stopped.
Had it already gone? For her,
for me, and being male, mine
mattered more, even to her.
Dumb. Very dumb. No one
really knew how dumb.
For then it arrived after all,
late as magic, but true.
The same dumb luck
led us to be safe,
to marry, but that
was a different mistake.
Peter Neil Carroll latest collection of poetry is Talking to Strangers: Poetry of Everyday Life (Turning Point Press, 2022). A forthcoming book, This Land, These People has won the Poetry Prize Americana.