Water Children

I read that in Japan abortions
are called water children: creatures
that don’t make it out of the first ocean,
babies who hold in their air for too long
and never learn to breathe, who sail out
in the liquid, just as they sailed in: a broken ship
in a broken bottle. Last night
I dreamt that you broke and I had to do it all over again–
the dreaming up names, the wrenching open
a space in my too-cluttered heart,
the seasickness in reverse.