What I Want to Know

About Prop 3 in Michigan and the Catholic Church

Is if the priest at the local

Church down the street thinks I matter.

If WE

Poor, brown, childless.

Black, young,

Minimum wage-earning.

Single parent.

Migrant crossing the border

In the cover of night.

Rural, farm worker,

Feeling the droughts once again.

Gay kid bullied at

School everyday.

Matter.

Do we matter as much as a fetus?

Is it an unfair comparison?

White woman on facebook

wants to fight me.

She says ‘the unborn’ can’t fight

For themselves, so we have to

Do it for them.

I counter that neither can

Fourth graders in Uvalde, TX.

So what I want to know is why

In church smelling of

Incense and god

I’ve never been told

To vote for gun control.

For immigration reform.

To vote in place laws that

Will protect our environment.

That will raise the minimum wage.

That will give us affordable

Medical care.

That will ensure that we

All have what we need

To be alive.

Why all the sudden

As I’m sitting on a hard pew

I am told to vote against a woman

Deciding for herself

If she’s ready to be a parent.

To vote ‘pro life’.

Meanwhile down the street

My people, poor and Brown and immigrant

Are surviving

On prayers alone,

As they’re told to be pro-life.