The Nearly One Poem by Sheena Blackhall

My brother carried a small sack of teeth, hair, skin
At the foot of his spine.
I heard an aunt call it the start of a twin
When he was older, a surgeon cut it out

Till it healed, he lay on his stomach
Our mother packed the gouged out wound with bandaging

I lay in bed and speculated, what this Nearly One
Would have been like.

Would it have been a Frankenstein child
Constituted like human lego?

Was my brother like Zeus. who gave birth to his daughter Athena?

Was the Nearly One like Dolly the sheep, a human clone?

I lay in bed and imagined a little male sibling
Coal black hair, broad smile and brown -green eyes
Who should have sprung from my brother's back
Singing like Pavarotti