It might have been beautiful, and certainly smart
Born with your academics and my poet’s heart.
It might have been witty, pithy and wise;
possessing your nose and my two emerald eyes.

It might have been evil; it may have proved kind;
the first of our brood was the last of our line.
Not that we ever will know, I suppose.
Just idle questions  geneticists might pose

It would have been born with ten fingers and toes
If left, unimpeded, for nine months to grow.
We were both too young, both too unprepared,
This life, unintended, was not to be spared.

Forty winters have passed since that fateful decision.
It was swept from our path with a clinic’s precision.
Now you, too, are gone, and that leaves only me
To mourn for our child not permitted to be.