I believe that the readers of this poem believe the speaker because of the tone of voice that she uses. The tone that the speaker uses seems to be one of seriousness. By using the line "Abortions will not let you forget," the speaker gets right to the point in a somewhat declarative way to show her readers that she is serious and she is ready to get to the point(435). Also, in the first stanza when the speaker uses the lines "You will never wind up the sucking-thumb / Or scuttle off ghosts that come," the reader sees that the speaker is talking about the things that the unborn fetuses will never be able to do because they were never born(lines 7-8). This might convey the speaker's feelings of regret to the readers. The "You" used by the speaker can also be seen as very powerful and, therefore, shows the speaker to be serious. Finally, when the speaker proclaims "I have .
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heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children," she tells the readers that she is being haunted by voices of her unborn children, thus expressing her pain and loss(lines 11-12). .
Another reason why the readers of this poem might believe the speaker is that she directly addresses her unborn in the latter .
half of the second stanza. The speaker is asking for some understanding when she says, " Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate / Though why should I whine / Whine that the crime was other than mine?"(lines 22-24) After reading these lines, the reader might believe that the speaker did what she had to do given the circumstances in her life at that time. For example, she might not have been able to have the babies because she was too young at the time and could not support them. The readers may be able to commiserate with the speaker because in the last couple of lines of the stanza she realizes that it was because of her that her unborn are dead. .
The speaker is able to get some of her readers to believe her by her word choices.