Car Rolls Off Clay Wade Bailey Bridge
And what of the driver, trapped
between metal
and more metal, metal and water, water and time?
A concrete island, a wish for loosening,
a confrontation with his mother nineteen
years ago, too close to tell anybody, now
bored by tears in this condition of you,
abandoned, outside of town, it
comes to us
quickly, northbound. Think of it as a loop
bound to a tunnel, cautioning an electric cathedral,
weakness, a hipbone resting against what you call
a tree seen near water. Imagine yourself named.
Listen to yourself shutting both up and down.
Imagine yourself, remembering daylight
savings
for once, only better, your only knowledge is
one of desire and now it can be just. You
forget to breathe, and this, look, moving, this
does it for you. Icicle lights. Fountain gates.
Pressurized air locks more than enough you
into you. A shrapneled soldier
who only wants
to go back is worth that trouble. Think of this,
oblique and finite, rushing in as though water
could change to pears and honey. If it’s me
you’re here for, say so, Cincinnati, listen,
if you were beautiful, there’d be no need for this.
-Erica Bernheim
About the Author
Erica Bernheim is the author of the chapbook Between the Room and the City. Her poems have appeared in the Iowa Review, Volt, Black Warrior Review, Gulf Coast, and in the anthology Legitimate Dangers. She lives in Chicago.
