Buried on this Island in a tiny unmarked plot, You would have been my son or daughter but she decided to abort. It would be nice to have been consulted, But that’s a right men haven’t got.
You might have been a beauty as your sister is today. Or You might have been a scholar if not commingled with this clay. There is no stone where I can grieve; No plot to kneel and pray.
Just this burial ground of paupers I am visiting today. It is my fault as much as hers I do not seek to blame. If only I could have held you once or given you a name.
The winter chill cuts to my core. I feel a sense of sin. I’m reminded the saddest words of all Are these:“what might have been”
A meditation by a man visiting Hart Island's potter's field about his unborn child. The death of one is a tragedy. The deaths of sixty million is a statistic. The final lines are intended to echo a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier