Suicide.

• Author: Cook-Lynn, Elizabeth
• Position: Poem

Suicide (There are more suicides on Indian reservations than any other place in the country.) I grew one tomato that summer in a pot on the cedar deck of that old house a measure of my willingness to fail or not I harvested it just as I returned from the hall where I saw him laid out in a shroud of silken maroon. A single fruit among the dried yellow buds now sits on my kitchen table among dishes he dried just last morning "Your crop's gone bad, gramma." He smiled. We can offer no explanation for what has been happening to the disappeared ones those we expected to bloom those we thought could make it from flower to fruit. We look for reasons: maybe, like some others, we watered too much or not enough or otherwise poisoned the crops...