Fallen Bridge
We knew the land before we knew the land
changed hands cheap.
My great-grandfather digged
up his best wives. The first give him a son
died young and uncomplaining
with room for him
to take another.
Eighty years the bridge grown old.
A ship swum through
and carried it away,
a man's pickup tied to one end
and a redhaired girl to the other, bit
like a weak bone in cold.
Before it was
the land would pace
back to back, way two men
like to shoot
but for a word hung in the air.
Copyright Credit: Isabel Duarte-Gray, "Fallen Bridge" from Even Shorn. Copyright © 2021 by Isabel Duarte-Gray. Reprinted by permission of Sarabande Books, Inc..
Source: Even Shorn (Sarabande Books, Inc.)