She didn’t mean to.
She was walking on a sidewalk,
which is certainly allowed.
But she is still a murderer.
Of the wood bug.
She couldn’t have known
that he had just seen it,
long enough
to love it.
And then her heel
ended everything.
We are in a rush
but I can see in his eyes
what needs to happen.
He cries and names him Gerald
and scrapes his body onto a leaf
and while I send a text
to buy myself a bit more time,
he buries Gerald
in our garden.
On the drive,
he peppers me with questions
about Gerald and about
the woman who killed him,
and even though we’re late
and my frustration is starting to gnaw
at my mood,
I answer them all
because I know
one day soon,
I won’t have to invent
magical explanations
because he will have stopped
believing I have them.