(poetry from rose's mother.)

My daughter's married lover is missing.
Liam. Liam Colhoun,
sometimes mispronounced Calhoun.
He forgives you when you do that,
almost chagrined,
as if the tricky spelling were his fault.

Liam, married to Helen.
Their boyfriend's name is Harry.
My daughter, you may know, is Rose.

It's important to say their names.
Names, not numbers, go missing.

Rose lives in San Francisco these days.
She was booked on USAirways 318,
due in Wednedsay night at 10:16 at LGA.
Liam was to meet her flight and bring her home to us
--us being Albert, Bob, & me.
He'd be wanting then to get back to Helen
and their four-year-old daughter Brigid
but, yes, he would come in for a tea.
The rest of the weekend-this weekend--
Rose would stay with Harry or all of them chez Colhoun.
For Rose that is also "home."

I am telling you these things
because the focus of the weekend was a romp in Central Park:
the Poly Pride Picnic, hurray.

"Poly" is short for polyamorous,
which gets underscored by Spell-Check;
the computer politely suggests ploy or polio.
Means openly having more than one lover
of maybe more than one gender.
This weekend the Poly's would say,
"We are what we are; we do what we are;
it's our right, our joy, our duty to celebrate."
Rose was making the trip cross-country
To wave that particular flag
And so I wave it here for her.

We will never get things right in the world
until we are happy that love
comes in more different flavors
than Ben and Jerry's.

The Poly Pride Picnic
is not my particular feast--
hey, I'm fifty-nine--but
I'd cater it if they asked.
The poly's are no better than the mono's
nor are they any worse.
We all know Hallmark loves
that succumb to dread and hate--
from Niagara Falls to the swamp,
just like that.

O, don't you think I sometimes wish
that Rose were happily engaged
to a tall New England Jew--
liberal and bright, saving the world
and a strong second serve?
Hers and hers alone,
with a wedding for me to cook
and grandchildren already named?

But we love whom we love.
My Rose loves Liam,
and her love for him hurts no one
by being different from other flavors of love.
Her prayer that he is alive
deserves our fervent echoes.
Rose does ask for prayers.
Her voice shimmers with hope
I don't have to tell you
the terrible weight of hope.

Helen called Wednesday from Queens
to ask my help in seeking Liam's name
on a list of survivors at the New School,
a few blocks from where we live.
Last seen wearing khakis and a beige button down shirt.
Moustache and goatee, two tattoos.

And our wedding ring--a puzzle ring, Helen said,
and a celtic cross with a garnet stone,
a gift to him from Rose.

Her wedding ring and the cross from Rose;
described in the same steady voice.
My daughter's lover's wife keeps her faith
even when the world falls apart.

There are so many ways to love.
If we open our hearts to them all,

maybe we'll crowd out the killer hate.

Liam Colhoun,
sometimes mispronounced Calhoun,
worked on the eighty-first floor
of Tower Number One.
He called home after the hit,
and his boss remembers (she thinks)
seeing him outside and okay
at ten o'clock.

He isn't in Hawaii surfing.

New Jersey, maybe, concussed,
and his wallet vaporized-
how strange that such an image comforts.

His cell phone doesn't answer but I never hear mine either.

Bring home the men who have only ever loved one woman
and the men who have only loved men
and the men who have only wondered
what is this thing called love.
Bring home my daughter's married lover.
Bring home everyone's Liam.

--Nancy Weber
Gipsy Trail, 15 sept 2001