Brooklyn Bridge

(designed by Roebling and finished by his daughter-in-law Emily)

This one's mine: not a nail-less Bridge of Sighs
nor a stage, where enemies or film crews shoot
but trembling on a net of "wheres" and "whys",
part Asses' Bridge, part Al-Sirat, less Iron Brute,

more hunkering church, grown from Gothic grey,
its cables spun from spiders bred in books.
That dark harp was made for me to play.
And however dark, I couldn't help but look

at ever darker slights, their height and girth
stringing me high above the traffic's hum.
I was harnessed by a yoke of fear, from birth,
less myself while adding to that sum —

the way the architect's now ailing daughter
laid her father's body, right across the water.

Copyright © 2003 Eva Salzman All rights reserved
from One Two II
Wrecking Ball Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission