Bridges

& is it any wonder
how time can bridge
wounds
& wounds can measure
time?

i bless
this memory of me, ten,
falling off a bicycle,
a waterfall of blood gushing
down my elbow
like okra disagreeing
with hand, its sinuous body,
as mine,
disagreeing with flight.

i bless
the confidence
that could only be ignorance
or a deficiency of memory
or a boon from time
that made me remount a bicycle.

let’s feast,
let skin eat skin,
let’s heal,
let time be accomplice
until blood is no more
until all wounds are forgone
until forgiveness is complete
& the bicycle accepts
me, its body,
in my absence,
now claimed by time
as a bridge for rust,
grateful for being ridden
again.

look at how,
every evening in the distance,
the sun glows
like a sun
burdened with the lonely
duty of shine.
& now its mouth is
a yawn saying:
“My God, my God,
Why have I been forsaken?”

& let it be wonder
that every day,
in spite of the knowledge of loneliness,
this sun arrives
on time.
its soft light negotiates
the birth of night.
& like the bridge of blood
from broken skin,
or like the bridge of skin
for broken blood,
leads the wounds of day
into demise.

now,
my bones in flight
on grateful bicycle,
healing elbow,
attended for weeks
but now forgotten,
speaks with stuttering blood:
“My God, my God,
Why have I been forsaken?”