Did you know
some insurances will not
cover fertility?
Mandated STD testing
Fertility shots
Blood tests to see
if it worked this time
(IV? Only if you can afford it.)
All costs borne by
desperate-to-be parents
But when it fails
when the fetus is
declared dead
insurance will pay
to vacuum out the parts
for blood tests to figure out why
for years of therapy
to cope with the trauma of loss
My friend went through this
not once, but twice
Now she stands on rally lines
crying out for universal health care
admonishing inadequate
and unfair practices
sharing the humiliation
of her own story
“Otherwise how could she recover,
how would she survive?”

Closing line from “Netting” by Oluwabambi Ige, published in Agni 93 (140-146, 2021)

[Prompt 4: Grab a book from your shelf. Read the last line in it. You have to use that line as the first or last line of your poem (with credit).]