Parents lose children to mental illness, drugs, alcohol, death, and even unwelcome distance. Sometimes it helps just to say, “Yeah, me too.” Read this from the collection Little Boy Lost.

Rx

3:22 p.m., March 12 and
The messenger’s nearly here
With this year’s diagnosis.
The package will be gaily wrapped.
Sometimes they add balloons.
In the following procession
The addendums march in,
Gilded with the newest rules
Tossing current practice
Like multi-colored confetti into the air.
Gentle reprisals in white lab coats
Complete the cortege with brooms in hand
Sweeping up discarded instructions.
And with a grand huzzah
They toast their cleverness,
Present the gift,
And leave.
3:25 p.m., March 12 and
Nothing’s changed at all.