My sisters and I once had a goldfish whom we, appropriately, named Bubbles. We would watch him swim around in his little bowl Ever circling back and forth and back and forth Until one morning Bubbles went belly up. Now, at the mature age of nine, Death was the Schroedinger’s monster under my bed With the potential to destroy everyone I loved, Accompanied by an uncertain actual existence. My six year old sister, however, had not quite yet achieved my understanding of mortality. A quick family meeting ended once we came to an apt solution; The mature, responsible, reasonable thing to do was, of course, to cover the bowl with a towel, tell my sister that Bubbles had a "migraine" and buy an identical looking goldfish as soon as possible. I wanted to give Bubbles a proper funeral and a casket But my mother had already flushed him down the drain by morning. I once heard that the smallest coffins are the heaviest. I didn't understand. I was 8 the morning my grandfather passed in his sleep For years death smelled like bacon burning and looked like the pain on my father’s face as he tried not to cry in front of us How could the tiny casket I wanted for my childhood pet possibly compare? My grandmother followed when I was 10 Death tasted like the cheap borscht at the reception And felt like my sobbing mother pulling away from my comforting touch How could the shoe box my best friend and I buried her hamster in make a dent in that kind of grief? One morning at school they told us our drama teacher wouldn't be coming back to class not tomorrow, not ever Death felt like the crack in my voice as I sang at his funeral No, the smallest coffins couldn't possibly be the heaviest, I thought. Until one morning I heard that a baby fell out of the window of an SUV Onto cold black concrete and was crushed on impact, My neighbor’s five year old daughter died of brain cancer, A sleeping seven year old girl was shot by a police officer in Detroit A three year old boy froze to death in Etobicoke Until I sat down on a toilet shocks of pain reverberating through my pelvis and the unborn child I didn’t know was there slipped out My father once told me that happiness is when the grandfather dies then the father then the son Tell us again and again that God must’ve needed another angel But sympathy falls flat when faced with putting your six year old six feet underground We all want to believe we were not made like this. In spite of everything we want to believe there is goodness in the world That even a force as cruel as death would spare a child. Now, death sounds like my friends calling me every morning for weeks to make sure I was still breathing, Feels like some days being smothered and others not even crossing my mind, Realizing that there are some ghosts who won’t disappear with dawn. They told me it could've fit in the palm of my hand. Looked like a newborn gerbil chewed up by its mother. Take my hand. Walk with me through water waist deep, steel toed boots on our feet and these small coffins on our backs. We will never feel anything heavier.