Moment On The Park Street Bridge

Moment On The Park Street Bridge

I stand on the bridge

Swaying over the inky expanse of water

Striped with swathes and fragments of light 

From the cars over the bridge

And the streetlights beside them

And the indifferent stars 

My face does not reflect

For it is too dark and I am too far away

I grow tense with cold and anxiety

I am seized with a sudden urge to fling myself

Over the edge into the inexorable cool sable

Of the channel that glides eternal under the iron beneath my feet

And to sink, perchance to dream

Beneath the salty nether night of the icy tides

As they wash the flesh from my ivory bones

And fill me with pure watery ebony...

But the impulse jumps first, leaving me still standing on the bridge

Until I wander home again