Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

We slap and slap
black flies. I remove
rust-reddened sneakers.
You snap

pictures. Water bruises
our feet: we walk on
cold sky, roomy,
imagine miners who worked

in towns that sprawled
and fell,
head off in

different directions.
Later I warm
swollen feet
as you drive us
to a river
cutting into the Lake.

We walk over
a suspension bridge—

how familiar,
you and I on
a trembling bridge,
death flowing
beneath us,

Superior’s purple star
calling us to come
get it.

 

originally appeared in Spoon River Quarterly (1997)