Billy is still dead and we shake our heads over it
all the time, text his daughters, call his dad, his
friends. The stupid, unforced error of a suicide,
this huge mistake, this one thing you can’t take
back. Sad friend, you cannot change, Elizabeth
Bishop said to Lowell. Or about him, since he
was dead. These days my heart rises, races, so
tender I’m feral, eyes quick to brim with tears.
I used to be embarrassed but now I love
the feelings. The Change! Hilarious, manic, such
a human thing. Not-so-fresh sense of wonder.
You are a thirteen-year-old with the experience
and daily life of a forty-five-year-old, Mary Ruefle
says. You have on some days the desire to fuck a tree,
or a dog, whichever is closest. I want to fuck
the tulips I planted, eat them, buy a house with a fireplace
and a huge bathtub in the middle of nowhere, throw
my phone away and drive to Naples, Florida, eat
grouper sandwiches, drink gin. Billy’s daughter Rose
is thirteen for real and I get it all so hard, want to get
her anything she wants. I tell her she is adorable
and she says More like fearsome and broooooding
and I text back YESSSSS and THAT’S MY GIRL. Pearl
is ten, calls me Jilly of Darkness, Jill of Destruction.
GOOD NIGHT SHE WHO IS JILLY she texts. Billy
called me Jilly, bellowed Jilleh! all the time; the girls
kind of thought it was my name. Your dad was the only
person who called me that, I told them that first week,
when I was just making chicken soup for everyone,
buying the stuff to make slime. But we call you Jilly,
Jilly, Rose said. And I said, That’s right. You do.
Jill McDonough is a three-time Pushcart Prize winner who teaches in UMass-Boston’s MFA program. Her books include Habeas Corpus, Where You Live, Reaper, Here All Night and American Treasure.
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This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Still Dead.
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