Maria McLeod
My window is at half mast as the night breeze
ushers in a letter, news
of a friend's suicide. I unfold
the enclosed with one hand
over my mouth, taking in death
the way the living do, afraid
to inhale it. "Man leaps
from Panther Hollow Bridge,"
followed by text in past tense, words
void of flesh.
It is a marriage of two moments: his
life / his death. I'm left
holding fractions of both, traversing
the time-lapse as past and present collapse.
At summer's end, hollow
offers itself up like a hole in the heart
cleaved from a city by split rivers, held together
by steel, and now, this sound:
my friend, falling, like the sound of scissors
cutting through hair, through cloth,
as the ground rises up to meet him.
Copyright (c) 2004 by Maria McLeod