When I leave the house these days
my son orders me not to die
which sounds like anxiety
except that he seems
to enjoy the details
like today when I promised I wouldn’t die,
he demanded to know
how I would survive
if I was run over by a semi-trailer
and when I told him
that I would hang onto the underneath
of the truck until a red light
he asked what I’d do if I swallowed antifreeze
while I was hanging on for dear life
and when I told him
I’d make myself throw it up,
he placed a python on the scene
that evidently belonged to the truck driver
and by this time
I was late for where I was going,
which is how it always ends,
with me yelling in an exasperated way
that must sound strange to anyone walking by
“enough, I won’t die today, okay”
and so it is that I have surely become a footnote
in the logs of random people’s lives
of a ruthless mother
who lived in that duplex
and the face
of her little boy
with an odd look on his face
as he waved and waved goodbye.