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.