today’s poem mentions suicide–I mention this so you can choose if you wish to read it
There’s no easy way to say it.
I told them. Our son died.
They were sitting across
from us, our new neighbors,
afternoon sun streaming
into the room with low spring gold.
Their grandson sat on our floor,
a teaspoon the only toy I had for him.
He mouthed it with quiet joy.
Was it an accident? she asked.
He chose to take his own life, I said.
The words hung in the air
like dust that sparkles
then seems to disappear.
What I did not say:
Once we sat on this couch
and read books, watched Peter Pan,
built pirate forts with pillows, searched
for Waldo and snuggled when it rained.
Once he, too, chewed on my teaspoons,
before he built computers and
took AP Statistics and helped me buy a Ford.
They murmured, I’m sorry,
because that’s what people say
when there is nothing else to say.
I realized I needed nothing more.
When the talk soon turned
to bonfires and building permits,
I did not mind. It was enough
to have acknowledged he was here.
What I did not say, but somehow said:
Just because he’s dead
doesn’t mean he’s gone.
We have three children—
two daughters and a son.