Above the Bridge
Rainstorms and hurricanes, my parents' arguments,
so brutal. As a child, I hid in a pocket of stillness,
quiet, always watching, watching out the window
as clouds move west in striated form
above the bridge that once wasn't there.Now, I care for my aging mother,
and all my parent's frustrations are sealed
heavy in the locked safe as she sits
with 15 bottles of pills in front of her.I daydream myself, as the woman who
found a key & a thousand bucks at the
beach, wanders away for miles & is not
seen or missed.In this daydream it's as though I've been given
a life-saving task that must be solved in 15 days,
or I will disintegrate, like the clouds above the
bridge.I change forms and become pearly, deep white,
folding into lavender grey...mammoth tree roots
unstable in dry soil, now a horse's face, mouth
open, swallowing a torso with no breasts.I disappear into my dreams, knowing I will not
find the answer today. My memories sail through
time, thin as tattered paper, wet from a recent rain.I am moving with speed, an armless sculpture, a para-
graph with no punctuation, random thoughts swept
under the hutch, searching for the end of the story.
