Death took my grandson
Two weeks before his birth.

I flail, seeking to understand,
Not loss,
For the poet knows all there is to know of loss
(if he’s paying attention).
Rather to understand
All that was given.

Is the mother of a dead child
Enriched by her new insight?

Is the father of a dead child
Prepared to comfort his wife
While pretending his own loss
Is smaller?

Is a sister or a brother,
Bludgeoned into silence,
Incapable of understanding?
Of doing anything that might heal?

All the women grieve their own losses.
And reconceive the trove of their losses in another’s.
It is the unfathomable lot of women
To bear the reminder
In the wonder of what might have been.