Dorothy Stratten’s Tent Trailer

When I over­hear my par­ents talk
about the death of Dorothy Stratten,
the Playboy play­mate first dis­cov­ered
in a Vancouver Dairy Queen,
I some­how con­fuse her with the woman
who sold my fam­ily our tent trailer.
For show and tell that week, I announce
that the woman who sold my fam­ily our tent trailer
was mur­dered and the teacher just nods her head
and moves on to the next child, a girl
who brings a doll she received for her birth­day.
At the time, I’ve only known of death
from young birds who fell from their nests,
a few flushed gold­fish, and my mother’s scis­sors
as she cut news­pa­per obit­u­ar­ies
she’d later place inside her Bible.
That a famous per­son has died, a famous per­son
who sold my fam­ily our prized tent trailer,
makes week­end get­aways even more exotic:
each time we camp that sum­mer I lie awake
lis­ten­ing to the crick­ets through the tarp walls
thank­ful, yet still uncer­tain, whether my hap­pi­ness
some­how led to Dorothy’s demise.