She was born
in a sanitarium
on a lesser island of New York,
nursed among the tubercular
and those declared by the State
to be insane.

She became a child,
growing like the island weeds
but contained inside,
shooed by starched uniforms,
her games limited
to shooting marbles in the wards
and racing wheelchairs.

Hush, said the young nurses,
your mama is ill,
don’t you want her
to get better?
Be good
and play quietly.
Be good
and don’t worry her.

So she roamed long hallways
and dark hospital passages,
trying to be silent,
never feeling
the salty-cool breeze of the sea,
just the passing rush
of medicine carts.

At night she swaddled
herself in rough blankets,
scratchily antiseptic,
singing songs to her doll,
never getting a goodnight kiss
from her mother.

Moral insanity, doctors murmured;
aggravated by childbirth, they agreed,
shaking their heads:
“There was nothing
to be done for her
but up the dosage.”

Transferred to the Incurables Department,
her mother was visited only
by bow-ties with clipboards,
her flesh contained
in a ten-by-twelve room
with leather straps
fitted to a narrow bed,
a view of rocky shores
from a barred window.

Her little girl did not miss her
but she longed
for her birthright,
the cool sea breeze:
When she was still,
alone in her twin bed under its thin sheets,
she felt the salt-kiss on her cheek
just before she fell asleep.

Author’s note: This poem was inspired by true-life stories of involuntary confinement of female psychiatric patients in hospitals in the United States and beyond, up to and including the 20th century. Reasons for confinement included justifications such as “hypersexuality,” “hysteria,” “insanity caused by overwork,” and “insanity caused by childbirth,” among others.

About the artist...

Emily Pera is a writer based in Providence, Rhode Island. Her poems and stories have been published by Tuck Magazine, Litro, Dissident Voice, Storgy Magazine, A3 Review, and Scout & Birdie, among others. She is a native of Chicago.