This poem is taken from PN Review 268, Volume 49 Number 2, November - December 2022.
‘from sky doc’
Once upon a time when suicide was getting everything I need
Once upon a time when suicide was say the magic word
Once upon a time when suicide was not the least bit romantic
then I’m gone but it’s not stealing
violence and all the self-harm that lilts
boys will be boys someone said
when we lined up on that hill
overlooking the city maybe
we had come to finish our fathers
maybe to finish ourselves
Once upon a time when suicide was say the magic word
and uncle Gary will appear I once
opened the door to my dad’s middle brother
having not seen him in two years
he looked pink it was bonfire night
my dad hanging a Catherine wheel
recounted to a neighbour his brother
on our doorstep full up on class A
Once upon a time when suicide was not the least bit romantic
one Christmas my nana ran a bath
and never came back my dad had this plan
...
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