First Edit: On my 36th Birthday

[Todd]

Hi Richard, I like the edit. I have a few small suggestions for you.

First Edit:
On my 36th Birthday

I realized today I'm six years too late
to copy you.
You, reborn through failed deaths,
while I like to think of dying
as a far away dog on a prairie plain.
I accept

I'll never be like you,
there are no metaphors to describe
my uncut thumbs.
I'll still try

to understand you:
disillusioned with love,
burdened with family,
judged by tulips.
You, who transformed suicide
into a poetic device
by translating death's foreign language
like a Gestapo prisoner,--While I still probably wouldn't have pulled Sylvia from this. This is a good reference to Daddy I think. While it could stand as it does. If you introduce that the father is actually the Gestapo in some ways you might tie it more closely. There are a few ways you could do that. It isn't necessary if you don't need the reader to fully make the connection.

while I count the candles on my cake.--final suggestion, borrowing from the last revision. What if you added an additional line: While I count the candles on my cake
at gun point.

Just some thoughts. I like the changes.

Best,

Todd