by D.S Waldman
Far dryness of the moon, cold
and hanging.
Its distortion
on the sea. Time and again the same
bridge; time
and its counterpart,
distance.
Walk from here to there
without breathing
—time. Now, without
thinking, walk back—distance.
A shape collapses where your body
used to be,
a short distance between
the head’s vacancy
and the pavement.
And it changes—far off, unseen,
the tide-raked shore—over time.
A small city, a necklace
of lights whose flicker reminds
you, immutable,
of a wedding.
Of a future whose past you are
stuck conceiving.
You turn and call
a name out over
water—distance. Hard
and unbounded. You lose
the name
from language—time. In another
language, silm:
moonglitter on the sea. Sex, too
—the water there.
Longing, you heard, is a bridge
free-standing—the long cold
of its girders, wires suspended
just so—its length
equal
to the endurance of
its maker. You
have walked it enough
times, down and back, breathing
and not, to know that
you didn’t build this bridge—to know
that collapse, its odd
danger
in the mouth, is just
another word for proof: turn,
look back as
you walk, see
the darkness that’s allowed
you here—that has
allowed you. See it there.
See how
it spits you out.
D.S. Waldman is a Marsh-Rebelo scholar at San Diego State University. His work has most recently appeared or is forthcoming in Kenyon Review, Georgia Review, Poetry Northwest, Gettysburg Review, Copper Nickel, Colorado Review, Missouri Review, Southern Humanities Review, and Cherry Tree. He’s received fellowships, support, and awards from Middlebury College, Kenyon Review summer workshops, San Diego State University, and Georgia Review. www.dswaldman.com