9.1  | 

Is suicide as common there as it is

here? Mahmoud.

I knew a young Indian boy once,

he found his oldest sister

hanging in his closet

dead.

After her funeral

his younger sister hung herself also.

The boy doused himself in gasoline

and lit himself on fire

and the ice was thin enough he fell through

No the young boy was not a phoenix.

He did not rise up out of the ashes.

Those are only stories.

This one I could touch.

He was only a young Native boy.

I cry Mahmoud, when I remember

it.

Is suicide as normal there

as it is here, Mahmoud?