(bridge)
from "Mother-days"
The bridge curves on high,
all-of-a-piece against the light,
and I keep pointing:
look, I’ve walked up there.
Listen, I’ve walked
over the smooth timber
staring at the moon, the clouds,
the skyline.
All was in order:
the books in my bedsit,
the city roofs,
the conversations in cafés,
the rose petals in my cup.
Sleeked in oil my hands were smooth,
no blistered palms, no dirt in the wounds,
no smarting teardrops
for moonlighting as an undertaker.
The child doesn’t believe:
I wouldn’t be up to it –
I wouldn’t squeeze through.
I did used to, I say,
I was slim, walked the quiet bridge.
Won’t tell him how I fled:
how I spread myself around
in derelict houses and railway yards,
on the splintery floors of back rooms,
in nocturnal woodland clearings,
or how I
crashed off the bridge
when I opened my mouth
and missed my footing,
had my ankle grabbed by the merman
and was trapped in burning pondweed
with marshy brown water
filling my eyes as I went under.
I shan’t tell that, and I shan’t tell either how
my papers got filthied
and the song washed off the music,
and dark blood welled up from the depths,
familiar from long ago.
A beautiful, beautiful bridge, says the child,
it curves: a ballerina’s waist,
the arc of a marble ankle,
pure white, classic,
stylish.
It’s beautiful, yes that is beautiful;
crossing over the bridge
you cross the stream with dry feet,
I say, teaching him.
Translated by Herbert Lomas
Page(s) 56-57
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