Craig Goodworth, Caldera Study #7 (shot book), 2013
THE BRIDGE ACROSS THE MISSOURI RIVER TO COUNCIL BLUFFS IOWA
When my father died I walked to the center
Of the bridge and screamed at the bums fishing
On the river bank Don’t eat the fish hooks
When my brother died I walked down in a snow
Storm and saw how clean the ice looked
I screamed Stop chewing that monofilament
When Barry died it kept snowing for ten days
I tried to rent an acetylene torch to do something
About all the ice I walked across the new bridge
The day it opened and screamed
At the cars flashing by at 6o mph
Go home and fry some fish
I know now why I have so few friends
They all know I will never go to their funerals
_______________________
John McKernan
Review by Jared Pearce
What I like best here is the tension between what is in motion and what is stuck—the traffic versus the ice—and then the speaker and the fish, who seem to be somehow connected as creatures in between, both in motion, alive, but limited in that living, and like the bridge itself liminally stuck. Such considerations build to the final two lines about friends and refusing funerals, but more than that, the tension between the fishers and the roaring cars, both images of hope and work, contrast with the placid fish getting ready to be fried and the speaker, bewildered with grief and wondering what the world has up its sleeve next.