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I did not know you very well at all,
even though your son became the best friend
of my husband's teen-aged brother
during the years we finished raising him.
Many an afternoon the boys and I
sat over banana bread and apple juice,
talking girls and algebra equations,
while you roamed the world as soldier and spy.
Sometimes we would meet to exchange children.
Then we talked about snow and winter cold,
while we shared a cup of Irish Breakfast Tea.
But when the children left our separate homes
to find their own ways in a changing world,
I never shared a thought with you again.
Still, I was startled when I got the call
from your grown son that summer afternoon.
They found you by a shaded mountain lake,
a self inflicted bullet in your brain.
