I followed your footsteps too late.
I heard your breath, the acceleration.
My feet, where my heart was, taking
Me to you, your self-erasing gestures,
Angels carried me there, the reality
Of what happened here tightening its
Grasp around my heart, and yet, I walked,
Limping behind you, your footsteps, that path,
The brutality of time, in my face, getting closer.
You had no thoughts. Everything blank.
You had one image in your head.
I took myself there. I crumbled. I approached you.
I had to make peace with this bridge.
It held you for a moment. You chose it.
Out of necessity. Out of proximity.
And I would find you there too late.
Stand there, with you, too late.
Looking down instead of in your face.
Too high, too deep, too high, too deep.
There were no thoughts. There cannot be.
I screamed your name into the valley of your death.
I inhaled your fall.
My hands, numb, I touched the bridge, my hands,
Trying to reconnect, trying to pull you back,
The pain is too immense.
I couldn’t let it grow stagnant in my throat,
Get stuck, my voice caught you mid-air,
And we played your song, on that bridge,
Your flowers on that bridge, she held me like a child,
I changed your diapers, I held you as a child,
I couldn’t stand there, my knees too weak to withstand
This sight, this brutality, this silence, now, she wiped
Away my tears, her hands in my hair and we breathed,
And there was nothing to forgive, only love to give.
Croque-Melpomene 