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coping (more or less) 253 The Farmer’s Widow Gives Him a Piece of Her Mind Maureen Tolman Flannery Everything else seems to be having life and having it damn abundantly if you ask me. A new cottonwood shoot, its sights on a slice of sky, aims to tower high over the house with roots scooping up the foundation. It’s taking full advantage of the neglect provided by my trying on life-without-you for size. This life is, by the way, way too big and hangs on my sunken chest like a hand-me-down housedress. The bankers have been by twice to find out why you had the cheek to die at the peak of growing season and to acquaint me with the red-ledger fruits of my current failure to function. This damn Queen Anne’s lace, light and airy as it is, springs up at will as if the home place were an open field. And your fields, my sweet weed-attacking dear, your fields are looking as scruffy as I feel and I fear, come harvest season, I won’t care enough to get out of bed. ...

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