My father died when he was sixty-nine;
my mother lasted one more year than him.
Both relatively young, both of cancer.
My oldest brother thinks they died so young
because they both were so unhappy.
Maybe so—I’ve heard unhappiness
can do that, and my dad was just about
as screwed up as a man could be,
the public man not the man my mother
had to live with, keeping up the pretense
of the pastor and his wife, family man,
God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world.
Way too complicated to explain.

But how does one explain their kids: eighty-one,
seventy-nine, seventy-seven, seventy-one.
With four divorces, lots of disappointments,
kinks and wrinkles I’d be tempted to explain,
had I but world enough, and time. Suffice to say
I’d not describe us as a jolly lot.
Growing up amid dysfunction doesn’t
really offer much by way of how
to see the sunny side of life, and yet
the four of us have all outlived our parents.
Maybe Mom and Dad were just unlucky.
Maybe we four boys were lucky. Maybe
there’s no explanation. Just the way life is.