Regret

Tomorrow, I’m driving my sister to kill her baby.
How am I going to stay steady at the wheel?
It’s going to be such a long drive.
One tiny victim,
Caged in the car,
Caged in a belly.

Today I made the calls.
I wrote down directions.
There is a plan.
This is premeditated.
I am an accomplice.

I keep crying,
but there isn’t anything more to do.
In the morning the car will start.
She will get in.
I will drive.

He won’t be there.
And I’ll be sitting in a room with strangers
trying to pretend like all of the rest of them
that a tragic progression didn’t bring me there.
I’ll turn pages in old magazines,
that I won’t be reading.

I’ll be thinking about a child I won’t be holding.
Little hands and tiny fingers.
Someone I won’t get to spoil.

She called me crying.