After many years away, Seattle is everywhere: the fresh faces
of the evergreens, the crows that kiss the sky.
I was once the sky. I ran over the hills of my body
with the son of a man who killed himself.
I’ve been thinking about what suicide means.
My friend says there are many ways to commit
without dying. There’s joy in that.
I ask myself: Do you really want to die this far away
from your hometown? I don’t. Want to die, I mean.
It’s too beautiful this summer and I want to see another like it.
The bluebells. The cardinals.
This morning, my mother called again to say she loves me.
I was annoyed, I admit it. I think she is dying
but doesn’t want to say. The last time I saw her
she was limping. She didn’t think I’d noticed her face sinking
into her skull. Still beautiful. Blush.
When she hung up, I opened the blinds. I want to die with the city
pouring onto my deathbed, to the floor, then out
into the hallway, and into another room where it can lay
its head on the pillows of others. Unbound by my bullshit.
Have you ever seen more than one cardinal at once?
I’ve googled are cardinals lonely birds?
I know what you’re thinking. Yes, I miss Seattle.
I miss my mother. I miss my father. I never call.
Last night, I dreamt my father and I stayed up all night
watching his grandson do backbends, cry, and laugh—
long black hair swooped into a bun. My father is alive.
Did you know? Sometimes I talk about him as if he has died.
When the man killed himself, what was he thinking?
When people jumped out the World Trade Center,
red from the combustion; cardinals; lonely wings—
never mind. I don’t want to go there. I am always trying
to escape too many places at once, flying out of a cage
and into another.