Little Losses

Baby Cosmo died when I was fourteen
They made a documentary about him
We saw his image on the screen of a 30 pound TV
But of course he never breathed
And we just saw his ghost on our machine.

He wasn’t the first dead baby I had been aware of, grieved
My cousin William died inside
The womb of my Uncle’s wife
While they were far away
Unseen by me
But missed and wondered over.
I imagined her hurt
Felt something approaching empathy
Although I was still young enough
To find the whole Birth Thing faintly obscene

And then another loss
Not mentioned to me personally
And so I will not speak it here
It is not mine to share
But I was aware
And felt keenly the broken dream of another family

And then some weeks before my baby died
I spoke to my friend about her infant brother
Lost just days after he was born
And we mourned for him a little
In the car on the way to work
I remember as we turned onto the road
With the lovely violin shop on the corner
That I felt a sudden premonition
I just knew that one day I would know that feeling too
I didn’t realise it would be so soon,
That I would come to speak with such authority
About small corpses and their consequences

But those four came before
When dead babies were a rarity