On the day I suicided, I woke early,
showered, shaved and put on my best suit,
went down to the kitchen,
sat at the table and ate breakfast as usual.
After cleaning the dishes,
I went into my office to kill myself.
The day after I suicided,
I took a walk around the neighborhood
and found the world
still spinning on its axis,
the sky in its proper place and the sun
staring its accusing eye down on my guilty head.
The neighbors averted their gazes
ashamed to see a suicide, so recently dead,
up and walking about.
When I got to work
someone else was doing my job.
“We really didn’t expect you in today,”
they said, “the dead are normally so unreliable.”
At home, I found my wife
had remarried and given birth to triplets.
“I’m so sorry dear,” she said,
“I couldn’t stand being a widow.
See what wonderful children my new husband and I have.
But you can stay in the attic if you like.”
I went to my attic and contemplated suicide.
But I had done that yesterday
and hated to be redundant.
Instead, I lay down on a bed of nails
and slept until I forgot I was ever alive.
Published in Chiron Review, Issue #95 Summer 2011
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