多次流產不會讓你忘記。

    你記得你曾經有過而得不到的孩子，

    毛髮稀鬆或根本沒有毛髮的粘濕小肉團，

    從未觸撫空氣的歌手和工人。

    你決不會不理睬，也不會打他們，

    不會用糖果使他們安靜下來，逗他們開心。

    你決不會將小小的拇指裹起，

    或趕跑前來作祟的鬼魂。

    你決不會憋住芳香的歎息離開他們，

    決不會帶著慈母的目光回來餵他們點心。

    在風聲中我聽到我那朦朧的、被殺死的孩子們的叫喚。

    我已變得瘦小。我已撫慰

    我那形體模糊的孩子們，以他們永遠不可能吮吸的乳房。

    我說：親愛的，假如我犯了罪，假如我奪去了

    你們的好運

    未足月便奪走你們的生命，

    假如我剝奪了你們的誕生和姓名，

    你們純淨的嬰兒之淚和你們的遊戲，

    你們笨拙或美妙的戀愛，你們的喧鬧、婚姻、痛苦

          與死亡，

    假如我扼殺了你們最初的呼吸，

    我相信，甚至在蓄意行動中我也並非故意。

    然而為什麼我該哀訴，

    悲歎那不是我的罪行?──

    既然無論如何你們已經死去。

    或更確切地說，

    你們從未被創造出來。

    但我恐怕這種說法

    也有漏洞：唉，我該怎麼講，怎樣把真相說明？

    你們生出來了，你們有身體，你們又死去。

    只是你們從未咯咯發笑，從未計劃做什麼事，從未

          哭泣。

    真的，我愛你們全體。

    真的，我認得你們，雖說不很真切，而且我深深地。

          深深地愛你們

          全體。

Abortions will not let you forget.
You remember the children you got that you
       did not get,
The damp small pulps with a little or with no
       hair,
The singers and workers that never handled
       the air.
You will never neglect or beat
Them, or silence or buy with a sweet.
You will never -wind up the sucking-thumb
Or scuttle off ghosts that come.
You will never leave them, controlling your
       luscious sigh,
Return for a snack of them, with gobbling
       mother-eye.

I have heard in the voices of the wind the
       voices of my dim killed children.
I have contracted. I have eased
My dim dears at the breasts they could never
       suck.
I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seized
Your luck
And your lives from your unfinished reach,
If I stole your births and your names,
Your straight baby tears and your games.
Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your
       marriages, aches, and your deaths,
If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths,
Believe that even in my deliberateness I was
       not deliberate.
Though why should I whine,
Whine that the crime was other than mine?－
Since anyhow you are dead.
Or rather, or instead,
You were never made.
But that too, I am afraid,
Is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how is the truth
        to be said?
You were born, you had body, you died.
It is just that you never giggled or planned or
        cried.

Believe me, I loved you all.
Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I
       loved, I loved you All.