The one who should have been the first,
My mother lost at thirteen weeks.
My parents saved his name for me
And one there sleeps, and one here wakes.
I wonder what he might have been
Since what I am would not exist.
What little gap there seems to be
Between my body and the dust.
So when I’m dead (as dead as him)
Will I then seem as never born?
A shadow lost when lights went out?
A matchhead struck which didn’t burn?
Abundance thrives despite our loss:
The glass reflects, the glass refracts -
My brother’s flesh and my own self
Still suppositions more than facts.
(first published in the
Jonty Driver
Jonty Driver at the MacDowell Colony
in 2009