Every time I drive the 28th St. Bridge I always make the joke
to myself– should I really be driving on this?

It’s a paunchy punchline to no one and still I apologize for it–
a comment on the bridge’s chipped green paint and rusted

hinges, the (perceived) rickety short-distance, its creaking (I
don’t hear a thing). How close I’ve been to a laugh, some snicker

into an abyss– I’ve said much worse to people and not apologized,
driving over the strip after a fight with my lover, suspended

in the air a silence like tracking a FedEx truck with a package
you know will reach you but when? That apology– the tethering

between the space of sound, the hum of a hungry engine,
covalence of steel and structure bonding across a void.

(originally published in where is the river, Winter 2021)