September 16, 2017

The Maple branch dips and sways with her 46lbs draped across the green plastic swing. She is flying.

She flies circles around and around and around her backyard universe. I sit in my writing studio and try to erase the truth from my eye sockets and heart and brain. I try to still the shudder of shock that keeps me clumsy.

Let her fly. Let her fly.

Let her swing and laugh and squeal from the same rope and same branch where her brother tried to hang himself.

August 17, 2017

I am perched at the end of a hospital bed in the psych ward. A mama bird with warmed-white-cotton wings.

My baby sleeps behind me.

A taller, sturdier branch would have done it. Would have taken him.

I cannot look at him without seeing the bright red ring of not wanting to live around his perfect…