So how’d it happen? In all likelihood,
She fell. Well, that’s usually how it’s told.
Women have accidents, they say. Girls slip
Up, fall down. Oops. But do we really dare
Say such about her? She’s not just any
Woman. Even if she wasn’t then who
She’s become now. ‘She fell’ is too simple.
So you’re saying what? She was pushed? Well, do
They talk at all about a husband? No.
As they don’t specify her condition.
Knowing her now by her reputation,
Even in that condition, he might have.
(We’re discounting impossibility,
That maybe nothing happened, that perhaps
Her existence is a myth? Yes, because
Turtle Island’s here and continental
Drift is insufficient to the cause of
Us inhabiting it. And null is dull.)
Let’s imagine glancing down and peering
Down through the hole, seeing that strange water
World, waves, shadows we later learn are wings.
Imagine her stopped, calculating how
Far the fall might be, the panic that clenched
Her gut gone away. Curiousity.
It’s now clear that our options are two. Who
Was she? The woman who jumped or the one
Who got pushed? That difference is the one
That matters. Does the mystery work from
The outside in? Or from the inside out?
That’s the one philosophical question.