The Widows' Handbook: Poetic Reflections on Grief and Survival

Falling

bereft, mourning 11 Falling Maureen Tolman Flannery Coyote, wily as time, is used to pursuing his swift nemesis off the edge of a cliff, blurred legs spinning like wheels, the momentum of chase propelling him straight out over the canyon where his being oblivious carries him, keeps him aloft. Only when some vague sense of disequilibrium suggest he check his ground does the looking down send him plummeting through the nothing solid where he is surprised to find himself. For you the phone’s ring was the movement forward—off the edge of the world, that trajectory from which it almost seems you should be able to reverse the propeller of numb limbs spinning, flailing, that they might carry you back to the rim of something firm that would hold your weight. But you were racing onto air and have looked down. Now you are free falling and cannot see the bottom. ...