Bridges

after, and in memoriam of Brigit Pegeen Kelly

Listen to the groan of the wood as they
Pry the nails out, the boys in coats,
Their wordless work in unison, the coats
Unclasping with each arm’s arc of gesture,
The arcs growing, the groans
Of the loosening wood, the boys are a beat.
There’s an order to them only understandable
Not as song, say, but percussive,
Like the clank of lashing plank to plank it took
To make the bridge they take apart.
There’s a song in their hearts
Startling like the throng of thrushes
That suddenly lift from the bushes
Like a start to a race as their crowbars
Unbrace the bridge their fathers made.
Their fathers had made bridges
The boys don’t believe in. What do they?
The question a paper boat that sinks
As it absorbs the stream that floats it,
The stream that wets their ankles
So they disrobe their feet and wash the other
Kicking water, working to unwork
The work their fathers did, the thing
That gives them passage to the other’s house,
The bridge that makes and unmakes distance
Like the limb between the bud and tree
That lengthens with vascularity. The stream
The wind knows biblically eddies at their feet.
They do not think of nails that sink
To beds they’re stepping in. One draws
A little blood. The other approaches.
Strikes him with the disassembled wood.
The thrushes start again. Their fathers
Are Noah and Moses. Their fathers
Are angels of God. They lay themselves
Down on the wet bed of nails. They lay
Themselves down amid wreckage of wood,
A crashed raft in ruin. Their fathers
Are water and blood. Their fathers are bridges
Weakened underneath where you can’t see,
Inviting you to take a step like the first
On Isaac’s journey to the mountain,
The step that makes you dead but free.

ξ

Micah Bateman lives in Iowa City, where he teaches in the University of Iowa's School of Library and Information Science. His chapbook of poems, Polis, is available from the Catenary Press.