Cardinal Sin

I don't love my son the way I thought my mother should love me so I handed him a shoe box to put the dead bird in and shut the door. It was a mistake, not to be sure he buried it, not to grab the children gathered at my back door by their shoulders to push them into a half-circle and a prayer. Should have made them take turns digging the hole, each one of their pudgy hands finger stiff red's box to lower it to the ground. It wasn't my place to teach other women's children about death, so my own son snuck the shoe box into his backpack, dead-eyed bird rolling like a plastic prize ball, told the principal this cold puff of field bird had been his pet. See him clutching a coffin the size of his feet, eyes wide over a pout, giving a man a reason good enough to hold him. after Louise Glück