Heart bones.

A bone in the heart,
she says. When you get old,
your bones fall out,
and there is a bone in your heart,
so it doesn't work anymore.

I think of an old heart,
made sturdy by a slender bone.

One day, your bones fall,
and the slender bone of your heart goes.

What else is there to do?
You collapse.

:::

This morning Mad told me I'm going to die. I struggle with the response because of course she's right. I will die. But for this kid with her tough outer shell and the bundle of worries inside it, I don't want to say too much. So I ask, why do you say that?

Well, I don't want to die, she says. But you're going to die.

I see the things she's struggling with. The viewings of Bambi and the missing mother in How to Train Your Dragon and the myriad insidious ways that kids are confronted with death on a regular basis.

It is 7:00 a.m. I am trying to get ready for work. How to field this question? I settle on a lie: I'm not going to die, Mad.

"You're not?"

No.

"Okay!" She says brightly, and drops it.

This lie. I feel the steady beat of my heart, the slender bone holding it up. Already so much weaker than hers.