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"the lost baby poem" 1 the time i dropped your almost body down 2 down to meet the waters under the city 3 and run one with the sewage to the sea 4 what did i know about water rushing back 5 what did i know about drowning 6 or being drowned 7 you would have been born into winter 8 in the year of the disconnected gas 9 and no car we would have made the thin 10 walk over genesee hill into the canada wind 11 to watch you slip like ice into strangers' hands 12 you would have fallen naked as snow into winter 13 if you were here i could tell you these 14 and some other things 15 if i am ever less than a mountain 16 for your definite brothers and sisters 17 let the rivers pour over my head 18 let the sea take me for a spiller 19 of seas let black men call me stranger 20 always for your never named sake -Lucille Clifton In "the lost baby poem" Clifton explains to an aborted child why the mother ("I") made the choice that she did, but does not lament that she made this decision; therefore, the speaker of her poem is a strong woman, as is typical of Clifton's personas. This theme is one that comes from Clifton's own experiences, the source from which she acquires most of her poetry. Clifton is also known for combining her language with her meaning; in line 4 she says that the "waters" were "rushing," and in line 17 she says to "let the rivers pour." Along with the careful word choice also comes her wonderful extension of the water imagery throughout the entire first stanza. Clifton uses the image of water and drowning to speak of the abortion, using such phrases as ". . . down to meet the waters under the city / and run one with the sewage to the sea" (lines 2-3). In the second stanza she uses the image of poverty through "disconnected gas and no car," and then the image of "[slipping] like ice into strangers' hands" (9) to denote losing her child to adoption. Clifton loves to use domestic imagery, which is also illustrated in the second stanza. The imagery in the last stanza enables Clifton's speaker to promise her unborn child that she will be the best mother to the children that she does have and to declare that if she breaks it "the rivers [will] pour over [her] head" (17), ". . . the sea [will] take [her] for a spiller / of seas" (18 - 19), and the "black men [will] call [her] stranger / always. . ." (19 - 20) to punish her. Basically Clifton's entire poem is clarified with her imagery. "the lost baby poem" also demonstrates that the poet does not feel the need to make the poem complicated to provide meaning. The poem is written in free verse, with no a priori form; this technique is typical of Clifton's style. End rhyme does not exist, and her stanzas are all of different lengths. She uses short sentences ["what did I know about waters rushing back" (4)], no capitalization, and no punctuation whatsoever. A break is created either by a line break or a caesura, which is denoted by extra space within the line due to enjambment. One example can be found where she states that you would have been born into winter in the year of the disconnected gas and no car we would have made the thin walk over genesee hill . . ." (7 - 9) The caesura is between "car" and "we" in line 8.