Incident on Lake Street Bridge

Saint Paul, 9 December 2006

This incident occurred in the spring of 1988

Running across the bridge one night

I startled a man atop a handrail in a diver’s pose

Poised as if waiting for the crack of a gun

I continued on an 8:30 pace

But the clothesless man chased me in rage

Jumped me on the bridge deck in traffic

I reversed him stabbed with adrenalin

Pinned him to the biting pavement

His mouth gaping as if to holler

I fled this still-born tragedy

A passing car paused by the man's listless torso

Mustered him into the back seat

Then the car sped off to...wherever

With no hint of body chalk on the asphalt

The deck has since been re-stripped and paved

Every morning after exercising at the gym

We are bare-skinned in a shower room

Refusing to acknowledge what I know

The promise of life becomes a blotted out relic

And shower after shower neither of us speak

About the incident on Lake Street bridge