To D, Dead by Her Own Hand

My dear, I wonder if before the end

You ever thought about a children’s game—

I’m sure you must have played it too—in which

You ran along a narrow garden wall

Pretending it to be a mountain ledge

So steep a snowy darkness fell away

On either side to deeps invisible;

And when you felt your balance being lost

You jumped because you feared to fall, and thought

For only an instant: That was when I died.

That was a life ago. And now you’ve gone,

Who would no longer play the grown-ups’ game

Where, balanced on the ledge above the dark,

You go on running and you don’t look down,

Nor ever jump because you fear to fall.

Copyright Credit: Howard Nemerov, “To D—, Dead By Her Own Hand” from The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1977). Copyright © 1977 by Howard Nemerov. Reprinted with the permission of Margaret Nemerov.

Source: Poetry (July 1972)