Drive-by birth—this mother snares a cab.
Shoots up, delivers, leaves her baggage
Backseat to the world—boy born, tab
Unpaid. The driver hasn’t disengaged
The gears. Paramedics cut the cord.
The taxi twitches, swears, then disappears.
Sirens swaddle them and us in sordid
City night. Small body in arrears
For drugs, drugs lace a smile across a face
Devoid of motherhood, numb to need.