My skull was too big
Her pelvis too small
I stayed between her thighs
long enough to learn
the word “I,” and then was
gone, spiralling
back towards the It-We-Oneness
that takes nine months
and a moment to leave behind.

A last, hovering trace: I see
the man who would have
been Father, solemn as he scours
a tiny pile of ash for
smaller shards still of what could have been,
to collect in a brass urn. He wonders,
out loud, why they don’t have
infant-sized incinerators.
Mother gives him a harsh look.

Together, they drive to the seaside. Mother
cradles the urn in her lap.
It is, she says, but half the size
of my problematic skull.
“If only,” she whispers, as
the man parks the car. He mumbles
something about trying again.

Soon, the brass is empty, the sea
is not. It is vast enough
to forget the past, or at least
to try. But I do not have to.
Soon I will be home.