THE UNFINISHED SUSPENSION BRIDGE
Tampa Bay, Morning Fog
The bay is so white. Peaceable.
Everything is lost in light. Even
the normally boisterous steel-workers
are perched on cables,
walkways, hoops,
like angels,
gazing at the flowering light, thinking
what they'll tell their wives, later,
over beers. When the juke-box slows:
Eternity. I saw it. Really.
Even
the homosexual construction boss
far below them on the caisson dock
is lost in thought. Occasionally, out of habit,
or maybe the hell of it, he'll look up
at the hazy bridge as though
he could see, it. He knows the boys
are goofing off. He doesn't care.
He loves the fog, the way the light,
disguises things:
He's five or six,
standing in a neighbor's yard:
Yellow boots, yellow coat
He loves it here: no school, no rules.
The morning’s so soft and white
he can barely see the house he left.
For the first time in his life
He is happy.
He smiles,
seeing himself again: A yellow finch.
Strutting about. Aglow inside.