(Between the 1930s and 1970s, approximately 37% of the female population of Puerto Rico, mostly in their 20s, of Puerto Rico were “legally” sterilized, without, or with coerced consent.)
What difference does it make?
One more, one less.
Lives not lived.
Waste.
What difference does it make?
One hundred, a thousand less;
they’re already dead.
No place among the civilized.
Don’t speak English.
Don’t read.
Don’t write.
Feral breeding
for the tending of what fields?
I spare them pain
and sad refrains
from infant deaths;
what can they offer?
Diphtheria. Dengue. Dysentery.
A borrowed fist of sugar.
What difference does it make?
One third, more or less.
Stopping their eggs.
Tying their tubes
Scraping their wombs.
Progeny of the poor.
Misery for them.
Taxes for us.
I’m stopping their eggs.
Tying their tubes.
Scraping their wombs.
God’s work.
I’m told.
