To identify the bird singing from the powerlines,
I pull Birds of America from its spot atop the bookshelf. 
Remember, friend, when you gave this book to me? Before
your move to Texas? Or, was it after the returning
to California? Your grandmother’s book
you said, who also loved to name the birds. 

How I grieved when you moved half-way across 
the country with your family, for your husband’s
better job. I boarded the plane with the baby, 
barely three-months old, while you wrangled 
the other children up the ramp.
It was December. Remember how we cried?

The new year began and with it, grief began in earnest. 
Jobs soured. Friends divorced. In May, my father died.
When school was out, to staunch my tears, 
Larry loaded our boys into the car (which car? I don’t remember) 
and we crossed the desert states.
Craters, canyons, caverns, kitsch motels, the kids counting 
dead critters on the highway all the way to Texas. 

Hellish hot, the Texas summer, but Laurie, 
you and I were glad to sit in misery together. 
We passed the baby back and forth, refilled our icy drinks.
The children, keeping cool, wielded water guns and hoses. 
The husbands talked sports, flipped burgers on the grill. It was June. 
Did we celebrate our birthdays, one day apart, together?

I don’t remember the birds in Texas, but mosquitos and chiggers
ruled the grass. Cicadas swarmed the backyard trees,
a visitation we’d not expected with its symphony of sizzle  
and buzz as if a world were ending or beginning. 
We could not have guessed which guests 
would be call upon us next. Some callers it’s best not to expect.