Gephyrophobia

Gephyrophobia

A woman on the news last night

described her experience with 

gephyrophobia—the intense fear of bridges. 

Driving or walking, it doesn’t matter,

she said, her mind stays suspended:

What if I fall? Is there anything below?

Can I make it to that far end?

Afterward, in bed, I imagined the

quickened breathing, the racing heart

that must accompany all her passages.

The trestle of her teen years spanning

that great chasm between adolescence

and adulthood. Her first job, first kiss,

so many firsts that draw us across

a threshold toward crossing a broad gap.

How anxious her heart must be at each

small step between two destinations. 

But now, sitting here on this bench of today,

midway across the bridge of my thirties,

I can feel it, just a bit, a discontented heat

glowing in my neck, dampness on my palms.

I want to wait here, like her, eyes closed,

breathing deeply, waiting for a partner, 

a guide to shuttle me forward somehow,

to tell me how long to stay standing here, 

and when would be best to charge ahead. 

Someone to ask if they know the way, 

whose knowledge can take over for mine

as they point out landmarks in the distance

and clarify directions and shortcuts that will help.  

But all I see are trees and thinning clouds,

and behind them daylight pouring down

onto these weathered boards

that my boots now seem to be 

stepping over, casting their shadows

before me and beneath me, 

first left, then right,

one after another. 

Digging a Grave

Digging a Grave

I start by marking four corners.

Uncurling a worn ribbon of line tape,

I measure the edges, then

perforate the perimeter with

a hickory handled spade.

To the two red-tailed hawks

perched above me in the cedars,

it must look like a long bed,

a morbid, four-poster affair,

its thin sheet of crab grass

tucked trimly under the mattress.

Next, I shear off the top layer

of grass and roots and twigs,

to expose a pad of black soil, 

an oversized door that leads

to a room no one wants to see.

Then the real labor begins,

the long slog of shoveling.

I am all shoulders and forearms,

shifting clockwise around

this room I’m forming.

Outside, the mounds slowly rise,

dark piles of linens, old blankets

waiting to be washed and folded. 

I work with slow and shallow breaths,

careful not to wake the folks

asleep in the next dark room.

Already they cover their heads

with heavy pillows of stone

to drown out all this sound.