They were plucked out of the bleachers,
one by one, like a terrible piecemeal rapture
gone before the buzzer sounded
as if to get a jump on things.
They were all, as people say, good moms.
I didn’t know them well enough
to say goodbye
but I've known their kids
almost as long as mine.
In the hierarchy of grief
I can only send a card.
Sometimes I see them
out of the corner of my eye,
months or years after they were taken:
coming out of the Target dressing room,
in line at the grocery store. I almost say a name.
When I walk my dog during the restless hour—
the witching hour, we called it—
when everyone is hungry, unsettled,
the smell of dinner, almost ready,
wafts from every few houses.
It’s getting dark earlier,
a school night in late fall,
and I think I see one
in a window. She leans over the table,
and then turns away.
I don’t know what I owe them,
or why I was allowed to stay.
