I am tired of my son being dead.
It is nearly three years without any reprieve.
He’s been dead long enough, I have read

books on loss, I’ve held on by a thread,
been honest, been good, what does this achieve?
I am tired of my son being dead

and not me. Why not take me instead?
(But who’ll bargain for him if I choose to leave?)
He’s been dead long enough. What’s ahead,

what’s our future? His gone. Mine in my head.
Where’s that sleight of hand I taught him . . . up his sleeve?
I am tired of my son being dead

on his birthday; these are my hours of lead,
with him in the Dead Queen’s bed. I grieve
he’s been dead long enough to be wed—

for his first time—underground. Now I dread,
this third year drawing near, that I’ll start to believe
I’m so tired of my son being dead,
he’s been dead long enough to be dead.

Kay Murphy
from her book Women Poets: Workshop into Print
In(her)itance Press, 2003

used with permission of the poet