The child is eleven, the third of three brothers
so: fearless and tough. You know, Whatever
they can do. . . . Also the colorful one,
the dreamer. Last week, wanting blue jays and robins
to breed (he called it mix together). I’d like that,
he said, looking out toward the woods. This week
he’s asking if I’ve seen the grave, he’s nodding
toward their back yard. I dug a hole out there,
he says, to bury the bird I found. A robin,
he answers me. I put a stone on top.
Then it needed a name so I named it Wings.

Wings, what he wrote on the stone. This child,
who is only eleven, naming Death Wings.
Already knowing the universe of flight
and loss, this child accepting the offices
given unto us to perform, the ones we find
on the paths we walk. Because he walked
behind their house, because he found a dead bird,
the instinct to minister took over, told him what to do.
Now on my path—so due to chance, so foreordained—
this child who’s eleven. This child named Evan.

Moira Linehan, CAES’79, is the author of the poetry collections If No Moon (2007) and the forthcoming Incarnate Grace.

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