The Suicide

She carried with her
wherever she went
a value-added tax of pain,
like one of those weights

a runner straps
to her legs
to make motion
through space more

deliberate.
And so she moved heavily
through those last
days, mistaking

the horizon
for the finish line,
rewriting the script
of her own life

whose alternative endings
she wouldn't stay here
long enough
to read.

Linda Pastan