The speaker is a mother confronting the intense grief and complicated relief surrounding her abortion. She lives in severe poverty without access to basic necessities like heat or reliable transportation during a bitter winter. She maintains a quiet reserve to process her trauma and refuses to let her past dictate her future. She uses her profound loss to become a stronger source of support for her family.

The lost baby is the speaker's aborted pregnancy and the silent addressee of the poem. Representing an ocean of lost possibility, the imagined child is repeatedly associated with winter ice and the flowing waters beneath the city. The child functions as the catalyst for the speaker's immense sorrow and subsequent vow to improve her life.

The living children are the speaker's actual offspring who depend entirely on her care. They represent the speaker's immediate physical reality and the primary reason she must persist through her trauma. Their existence demands that the speaker act as an immovable mountain of strength regardless of her emotional state.