A Mother Writes a Letter To An Unwanted Child

There is regret, shelved torn fingernail. You were smuggled away, bound to an older bosom. I needed to quickly name you. The name I gave was flimsy. You disappeared inside my eyes. It all seems worse than wrong now. I gave them your drowned face, they breathed new air into it. Dressed you to forget. I can only see phantom clumps of you, shreds flying in the wind a transparent stranger. I cannot now speak to your namelessness. All has gone quiet inside me. I have been sewing tight a womb made of long-evening shadows. I feel less flesh confined, more porous to the residual flavor of you.