There are so many ways to fall,
so many things to grasp
that just can’t hold you,
so much drama
at how things unravel,
or sag, or crash, or splinter

There are so many songs
that detail how the thing went down,
how it spiraled, how it flailed,
how it sank

We feel the pathos,
for who of us has not fallen,
who of us has not known
the stomach drop, the swift slide,
the quicksand’s implacable suck?

It isn’t known, as much,
what happens after —
the nature of the place where finally,
we land. If people knew of that,
maybe they’d sing of it more often —
the core of gravitas awaiting there.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 28, 2020