Still Dead

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 mistake, this one thing you can’t take back. , 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 ! Hilarious, manic, such a human thing. Not-so-fresh sense of wonder. , Mary Ruefle says.   she texts. Billy called me Jilly, bellowed all the time; the girls kind of thought it was my name.   Rose said. And I said,