Eli,

© Beth Roberts

for Eli William Roderick      lived 9/15/93 first you were born, then lived a time, a very short time, a life with the look of a mayfly left a petrified forest in me. You must be excused, (you didn't have everything you needed) and God. (First I was everything you needed.) (As though) first again I was left in full form a winged lack, black black velocity, wind without hitch to black out or elide or fix what dropped you, the very air. Only now I see you've made of me a bird among leaves, hundreds of feathers like minute fingernails but no real wings nor need for wings with my kind . . . and the small of my back, former way of harms, you've displaced with another, fully formed of heft, sweet, bit, resident.