Loss

(the only picture that I have of the boys together)

Loss
1991

A cruise Mom planned
for herself, two friends,
my new husband and me,
on the Columbia from Astoria 
to the Snake River
the phone call comes on board
seventeen-year-old Bird
his voice too slow, too deep
Jay died, he said
His one friend

A complex heart defect, 
organs crushed by severe 
scoliosis, he died 
in his mother’s arms   

Bird, I’ll come home right now
No, he said, stay with Grandma
she wanted this trip for you  
Aunt Margaret’s been great

His only friend dead
he’s thinking of family