Each time I come here
I expect the tilted birch
at the cliff's edge
to have fallen to the water
thirty feet below
or to be hanging, headfirst,
by her roots.
Each time, I want to find
some way to save her.
Today, she drops
the gold coins of her leaves
into the lake,
one wish at a time.
I think of Mary,
who lept last May
from a cliff far higher
than this one.
I had watched her
at the edge
for such a long time.
Still, I had believed,
up until the moment the phone
ruptured my sleep,
that there would be
the perfect dose of
prayer and prozac
that love could be
like ropes.
-- Deb Cooper