Written after I read about some pharmacists who are refusing to fill birth control pill prescritions based on their evangelical beliefs.

Take Their Pharmacy License

the new evangelical pharmacist
has a wide smile, happy that he can stop us
from purchasing our birth control pills.
his sappy, god-loves-me face peers
through the glass window as we wait,
prescriptions in hand, scraping mud from our shoes
on white linoleum, inching our way
toward his assistants, who in their white
smocks resemble automatons, smiling
wide smiles, eyes blissed-out rapturously, awaiting
the split in the blue sky
that will yank them to heaven.
meanwhile, we stretch out our arms, giving up
the square prescriptions initialed by good doctors
celebrating birth control, allowing us
to love each other in our own bedrooms
with no consequences;
but the mad scientist rips the papers from our hands,
stamps them as received but refuses the pills,
saying his conscience prevents him from
such evil, and we slink away, back
to our pill dispensing doctors, who write
other prescriptions, other orders,
and we must wait for sex
until
some pharmacy, some K-Mart
hires a pharmacist without that
evil, religious smirk
of doom, judging us as sinners,
desiring each sperm and each egg
to mate and form unwanted
human life.