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So
Just Try Harder
by
Kathryn Jacobs
It’s strange,
but you don’t
have to break
your neck
each time you're
ass-end upwards.
Panic, sure --
but writhe, and
you may merely
bruise your back-
side in the fall.
Or say the slip
occurs
while loafing
near the local
precipice:
it’s still
not absolutely
clear you’re
doomed
unless you hurl
yourself at the
abyss
(the rest of you,
I’m willing
to presume,
will try like
hell to fall some
other way).
In short, there’s
no good reason
to assume
You have it coming
– think:
the Man on high
may just be bored,
or smoking. You
can’t say;
he might be in
the grandstands
filled with gloom,
you made so little
effort not to
die.
©
2010 by Kathryn
Jacobs
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About the Author
Kathryn
Jacobs
a poet and a medievalist
from Harvard with
two volumes coming
out in 2011; her
book In Transit
(David Roberts
Press) and her
chapbook, Signs
and Portents (Finishing
Line Press). She
also has two prior
chapbooks, a book
of medieval marriage
contracts, fourteen
articles, and
well over a hundred
poems in a wide
variety of journals.
In 2005 she lost
her son (Raymond)
at eighteen, of
sleep apnea; two
years later his
twin sister was
diagnosed with
melanoma (fine
so far). She teaches
at Texas A &
M - C; and has
one elder daughter
far away in Chicago.
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