She was fished out of the river just beneath the mighty span.
Her clothes suggested affluence. Her death bespoke despair.
I sent two men to search the spot from whence she took to air.
Her dead face poses the challenge; can you find out who I am?

Her prints? Not in our database. No purse and no I.D.
She wrote no note that we can find before she took her leave.
Was this some broken love affair? Is there no one to grieve?
The witnesses to her leap are few and contradictory.

Her hair is blonde and shoulder length, neatly coiffed and trimmed.
I notice that she bit her nails, but never will again.
She should be off in college; a new beginning not an end.
The M.E. bags the body. Soon the autopsy will begin.

I look through missing person files, to match a face and name.
I dread the call I’ll have to make to drain some parents’ hope.
To lose a child by her own hand- how can a parent cope?
The tox screen shows no drugs present. I had thought the same.

Female Caucasian, about nineteen, no birth marks and no scars.
Our Janet Doe was pregnant. Was that motive for her leap?
Did her condition make her desperate for this forever sleep?
Surveillance footage yields a clue. To pursue I’ll need my car.

The Tap room reeks of Guinness; the night is near its end.
I show her picture to the barkeep- This girl was here tonight.
There’s a glint of recognition and new facts brought to light.
He doesn’t know her name, but he surely knows her Friends.

They are sitting at a table, looking somewhat worse for drink.
I get her name and address. She is “Janet Doe” no more.
Celene attended N.Y.U. she had been majoring in law.
I left them deeply grieving and not knowing what to think.

This morning I will make the call, the saddest one of all.
“Can you come in to identify the wreck of your hopes and dreams?”
“We think your daughter took her life, at least that’s how it seems.”
To hear her mother’s sobbing is the hardest thing of all.

For thirty years I’ve worked this beat, but today I cried.
I’m not inured to suffering or indifferent to pain.
I’ve seen the broken bodies and think it such a shame
whenever wingless angels try to fly.