Though I did not know you, or your daughters,
I know their friends: isobars of pain
Have run in lines of high and low through
All this isolation — you, your daughters,
Their friends, and me, the line connects us all.
I wonder how it felt, tempting the edge?
I see you spinning, in middle winter,
Your body wheeling on the fine ledge,
Platform for your final acts.
I can’t remember if it rained that day.
Train and rail and hot engines express
Their sympathy and warn: we are mindless muscle,
Taut and hard; we are sorry, but
We do not stop for suburbs of the heart.
“All this freedom, my God! What can I do?” —
Was pulling you like gravity, merciless
And the most natural thing in the world,
Toward yourself. How could you resist?
Stephen J. Williams 