All the Colors of Might Have Been

An elegy for our lost child written in 2012

And for some nights she whimpered as she dreamed
The dead thing spoke, saying: "Do not recall
Pleasure at my conception. I am redeemed
From pain and sorrow. Mourn rather for all
Who breathlessly issue from the bone gates,
The gates of horn,
For truly it is best of all the fates
Not to be born."

Anthony Hecht, "The Vow"

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I should be relieved. We're not ready fo…