He showed anyone who would give him a moment of time
the faded sonograms, sighing
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Strangers inspected the black hole of a human and smiled
“When is it due?”
“Two years ago,”
he said, his voice full of his wife
curled on her bedsheet, one hand
clutching her hair, the other
pressed against her empty stomach,
full of the child’s black hole eyes
staring up at the doctor as he scooped those eyes into sterility.
“I’m so sorry,” they told him with curious frowns
because they did not have to sweep pretend-memories
of singing nursery rhymes
and holding it until its tears dried
under the rug of their minds,
because they did not have to struggle to sleep at night
watched by black hole eyes.