The facts do not support this story
and there is a certain dream logic to it
so while I surely remember it happening,
it may have only been a nightmare.

Dad was driving us home.
That my mother and father were together
means I was less than ten.
It was very late on a winding road
at night.

Before us was a stopped police car,
lights flashing.
Dad, inquisitive, got the story.
“A jogger had an accident.
Got run off the road.
At least it was painless.”

I don’t know why oncoming traffic
had to be stopped for this.
Maybe there was a teachable moment
to be found.
We drove on.

Not long after
our headlights caught a woman
floudering from a house
off the side of the road.
We slowed, stopped, and spoke.
“I’m worried about my husband,”
she said, “He left to jog
too long ago.”

“Ooh!” I called out, eight-year-old excited,
“Maybe he’s the dead guy!”
The woman blanched.
My mother dashed out of the car,
hugging in crisis control.
My dad soon followed them into the house.
I don’t know who explained to me my…
faux pas
but it was there I first learned how impolite it is
to shout out the death of a loved one
when you haven’t been properly introduced first.

My parents comforted the possible widow
while I
stayed outside
in the night
to think about what I had done.

I guess now is the right time
to mention the child’s bow and arrow set
we’d bought earlier
which I hadn’t had time to master.

I hadn’t heard of Hammurabi
but somehow had an intrinsic understanding
of an Eye for an Eye
and decided that since I
had made her husband dead
in the woman’s eyes
it was my responsibility
to take his place
so I pointed the arrow at myself
aimed the bow backwards
pulled the bowstring away from me
and waited for someone to come out

to stop me from doing anything rash.

“What are you doing?” Mom said.
I blathered out the best explanation I could
of my self-harming rationale
through creative tears
and was told nothing was my fault,
that sometimes accidents will happen,
and we just needed to wait with this woman
until we got proper word
of who had been hurt.

And that’s all I remember.
It seems that’s when the story stops having a me component
so my memories kind of fizzle.
If any of it is true
I think it’s pretty fascinating
but my mother has no recollection of this at all.

She’s getting forgetful, though.
My story must be dead on
and everything happened
exactly as I’ve told it.