Poetry Magazine
Pauline Is Falling
from the cliff's edge,
kicking her feet in panic and despair
as the circle of light contracts and blackness
takes the screen. And that
is how we leave her, hanging—though we know
she will be rescued, only to descend
into fresh harm, the story flowing on,
disaster and reprieve—systole, diastole—split
rhythm of a heart that hungers
only to go on. So why is this like my mother,
caged in a railed bed, each breath,
a fresh installment in a tortured tale
of capture and release? Nine days
she dangled, stubborn,
over the abyss, the soft clay crumbling
beneath her fingertips, until she dropped
with a little bird cry of surprise
into the swift river below.
Here metaphor collapses, for there was no love
to rescue her, no small boat
waiting with a net to fish her out,
although the water carried her,
and it was April when we buried her
among the weeping cherries and the waving
flags and in the final fade, a heron
breasted the far junipers
to gain the tremulous air and swim away.
Source: Poetry (March 2000).
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This poem originally appeared in the March 2000 issue of Poetry magazine
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Poem Categorization
SUBJECT Family & Ancestors, Health & Illness, Living, Disappointment & Failure, Relationships, Death
POET’S REGION U.S., Mid-Atlantic
Poetic Terms Elegy, Metaphor, Mixed
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