Mercedes Lawry
Help
Artwork by Krista C. Graham, Torso, pen and watercolor
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Help
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We visited the home for unwed mothers
as a good deed. I’d tagged along with the Protestants out of friendship, though I’d grown up Catholic and was ¾ of the way an atheist. We were not bringing Jesus. I can’t remember what we did, only the girls with big bellies, lumbering around, looking tough and cocky and no doubt, craving a cigarette. The Beatles song “Help” played jauntily in the background. One blue-eyed girl with fierce eyes and scraped-back hair told us that’s what was played when labor began, that’s what ushered their babies into the perilous world. It was years later I realized she was having us on, trying to say this whole mess was just a bother in a low rent life littered with bad luck, trying to shock us, kumbaya innocents, who were convinced there was no way in hell we’d ever end up in a place such as this. |
Mercedes Lawry has published poetry in such journals as Poetry, Nimrod, Prairie Schooner, Harpur Palate, Natural Bridge, and others. Thrice-nominated for a Pushcart Prize, she’s published two chapbooks, most recently “Happy Darkness”. She’s also published short fiction, essays and stories and poems for children and lives in Seattle.
