They walk into the restaurant, as if a cloud was over them, head bowed and looking down father, mother, and two girls. The first, 10 years old, is slim and bright. The other, older, bigger, with tongue protruding, her Mongolian features signaling immediately: “Down's!”

Father shepherds the girl to sit with her back to the crowd. Daughter looks up to dad watching intently for secret signals, And when she speaks too loud he holds his hand up and she stops, well trained; but her sister, embarrassed, looks down, and her mother, embarrassed, looks down, and I, embarrassed, look down.

And, looking down, I want to say: “I know how painful it must be.” I want to say: “I do imagine it to be unbearable.”

I want to say: “I remember, oh yes I now remember the day, so long ago when my friend's child was born into my hands and I looked down and saw those same Mongolian features.”

I want to say: “I remember then, scared and stunned, I looked away.” I want to say, “I remember then my friends too, looked away.”

I want to say: “I remember then, the pain was so unbearable that we had to look away in denial not facing what we saw, for a time, until we could look up and deal with the pain.”

And when I look up again, I want to say: “I weep today in sorrow for your loss and that of my friend's and I also weep today in gratitude for the miraculous gift of my five sons.”

Another of Roy's poems was published in the December 2009 issue of the Journal.