The Bridge
I’m okay, I say, because it’s what you say.
And, hey, a black-chinned hummingbird sized
me up, eye-to-eye, this morning, asked me
his questions three, and let me pass. A young
boy stood facing me from his adjoining booth,
waved when I waved, and yelled, “frog!” which
is the password, of course, if one is deemed
to be okay. Sometimes the test is more
inscrutable. It’s a kind of faith, I suppose, to walk
out my door believing that gravity is still the law
of the land, when so many others have been sus-
pended, that I will be neither crushed into my
shoes nor lifted away like so much cottonwood lint.
And this, whatever this is, when I have no answers
for the horrifying troll lurking beneath the bridge—
words, these ragged few, still hang on the line.
.
Lethologica
And yet, sometimes, something like the tide—
though never so dependable—rolls back,
briefly, and there, in shallow tidepools,
anemones raise their many arms in answer,
crabs scuttle out from under rocks, clutching
the names of the two moons of Mars in their claws
or the name of the cemetery section where
your mother is buried—the name of a flower,
wasn’t it?—and brilliant bits of sea glass
might be the names of your grandchildren
and their birthdays, and with any luck you will
tuck them into your little bucket for safekeeping
before the water rushes in again, leaving
the matter of your bank account pass-
word for later, leaving you, again, all at sea.
.
C. Wade Bentley recently retired after forty years of teaching writing. He loves grandchildren, mountains, and food that is bad for him. His poems have been published in many journals, including Rattle, American Literary Review, Southern Poetry Review, Poetry Daily, The American Journal of Poetry, and Poetry Northwest. A full-length collection of his poems, What Is Mine, was published by Aldrich Press. wadebentley48@gmail.com
.
Stone Poetry Quarterly 