The Buddha Rat

There once was a boy
Who went to the market
And bought some hot chocolate
And put it in his red pocket.

I said, it's fine, Ethan, especially that red pocket—what do you call it? He said, what do you mean? Most poems have names, I said. And he said, ah . . . George.

And when he heard me repeating the story of his poem and of its naming, he said, sometimes I call it Jack.

That wasn't his best poem. Like me he didn't intend his best poem: we were walking beside the tidal basin just past dawn, the cherry trees in bloom, the sun bright and the blossoms reflected in the still water. He pointed down and said,

Look, water in the trees

I thought I would steal the title, my lost boy, to be with you in your poem, but it's made me see I'm going to have to write that poem I do not want to write, named Ethan.