HOW TO BECOME A MOTHER WHILE FALLING OFF A BUILDING

Accept that you are both falling. Understand neither of you will survive. Spit out the sweetness of your life. Hold his head against your breast. Remember when he was pulled from under your ribs. Recall the gasp—the wide-eyed uncoupling of what was once whole. Feel the cold air strip you of your selfishness. Rotate your body so you will go first. Hold him above your head, your heart. Hold him away from the ground which is coming closer and closer. Preserve him, as long as you can. Now, imagine him without a mother, if even for a split second. Feel the unforgivable lurch of that. Refuse to abandon him. Twist your body again, more difficult this time against so much gravity, so that he lands first. Be willing to endure this loss. Smile at him. Let the last thing he sees be his mother’s face: whole, and beautiful, and his.

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Carlin Katz (she/her) is an animist, student herbalist and mother living with her family on traditional Chinook land in Washington State. Her non-fiction is forthcoming in The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts.