My friend,  the mom of a beautiful
  20-year-old poet,  who this month,
     on a Tuesday,  silenced himself with gas,
can’t understand why God took him.

For in the same moment her son began to gasp,
  across town,  her daughter drove her car
     into a ditch.   And God saved her.
And as she opened her dented door,

my friend entered his bedroom,  found his body,
  still and blue,  the memory of his birth
     pushing through her,  his head crowning,
lungs launching,  face roaring red.

And one week later—to the day—
  his slapstick games and existential
     hair,  unruly questions and acoustic guitar,
his how-to-save-a-life voice

all came rushing back
  as she checked her voice mail,
     listening,  for the first time,
to a message from months ago,

surfacing from a place,  which until then,
  had been nebulous and remote,
     like the space between satellites—
her one and only son saying,

Hey, mom, I arrived fine.