Loose gravel used to give way to dirt under your tires

Just around the back county bend from the trestle there

 

Don’t know whether the road’s still mud but

I’ll bet that old rust basket yet spans Big Creek

 

All those criss-cross girders, once maybe gray

Brown and red now these so many years

 

Twenty, even, since I walked it last

In my too-long West German army surplus coat I recall,

 

Young, with my even younger friend Nick

Talking about how it would outlast us, that bridge.

 

Nick now shows his art in France and NYC and Marfa, Texas

And some of the kids I taught English are in college now (God help them)

 

And maybe just maybe, in some ways, Nick and I,

We’re gonna outlive that bridge.

Tweetspeak-Poetry-Tugboat