In truth it’s not the hanging
that’s hard to explain to a seven-
year-old who knows what necessitates
a breaking or a blush
to any place the pain called it
she knows what a hanging does
because she’s seen the marks
on my arms older than
her, she’s fallen off a bike
and emerged with a new story
running still wet on her legs
she loves superheroes and the way
they punch someone so hard
their eyes close and remain that
way, it’s not the hanging
love, we all descend
hoping the plunge ends quickly
it’s the easy smiles beneath the falling
of sky, the ornament of an always Christmas,
a picnic made of triumph below a swinging
North Star, yes daughter, you are
right that people celebrating a death
can be a funeral, no I don’t think
they are people in the picture,
yes, your friends
from school, from gymnastics,
Girl Scouts, Build-A-Bear, your
teachers and new teachers
look like the not-people too
no, I don’t think they will
be there at the drop, at the sudden
dismissal of flight, and I won’t
be either, if I pray for anything
it’s to know my length of rope
before you, girl, please know
it’s hard to tell between
one who will anoint the space
between you and the not-people
that pulled your dad from the car
I would wish you luck
but there are more stories about love
than there are those willing
to die for it, there are fish who
will always have a hole in their cheek
because they were almost
worthy of slaughter, tiny thing,
please remember this picture
and the way eyes can track
their next meal and the smiles
are already decaying, already
an archive of failed endings
before they knew that one
day you could see them