SUICIDE PREVENTION

      New signs at all the local train stations—

      Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

      I’m glad my son can’t read yet.

      Yesterday morning he made up a friend, Lofty,

      who was captured by bad guys.

      My husband asked, Loffy?

      He said, No, with a T.

      If it was a v, it would be Lof-vee.

      He’s starting to get it.

      If it was a circle, it would be Lof-circle.

      He’s almost starting to get it.

      Today he tells me he’s dead. He’s a ghost.

      He misses his ghost family.

      Something’s wrong because they’re inside

      the wall but he can’t get through.

      Then he walks into the wall to show me.

      Then a ghost ladybug shows up who can get

      through the wall, and he saves everyone.

      My son bends down to hug a family

      of very small ghosts.

      I don’t know how to talk to him about death.

      When I told him about his great grandfather,

      who he’s named after, and that conversation

      led right where you think—He’s dead—

      he told me, Only bad guys die, and I

      could only argue that so many times.

      Before I tell my son about suicide, I want to

      tell him about murder, I want to tell him

      about dying of an illness, about dying in sleep.

      It feels awful to hold that plan inside me,

      to know this ranking of death.

      Do I tell him about genocide last? Or

      how you