Instant Classic

To the woman on the bridge today, flanked by squad cars, being spoken to by an officer, and others in their matching uniforms standing nearby, dutifully scanning the area: You sat on a concrete abutment like a teenager on a fence, legs hanging, as perhaps you had sat on the bridge’s railing itself some time before my arrival. The bridge security car, a little hatchback with lights on it, is there too. This person drives back and forth on this bridge every day looking for jumpers. If you build a structure like this, offering a 220-foot drop, you owe it to the populace to mind it, especially on a day like today, when leaders sued over the judge’s order to pay the needy, and of course meanwhile the ballroom is being erected. Traffic slows, as one of the squad cars blocks the lane, and the oncoming traffic is being cautious and gawking. Woman, I see your facial creases just like mine, your tired eyes, but I also see the way your palms bear weight, with a touch of energy. You are not at the river bottom, or far downstream, soggy and limp. I drive this bridge every day at lunch, heading to a park with my salad, and I’ve seen the signs. “There is hope.” Words that have looked like lies many times. Behind your gray-blond head, the river far downstream ripples with sunlight, a meadow of sparks, the blue-black surface more like slate than fluid. We all notice you, and we all care. We all breathe a sigh, silence our radios as we pass. We check ourselves in the mirror, reflexively. We check our speed, mind the lane, and humbly eye the rolling road. You are there, perhaps to be taken to an ER. Let there be paid nurses, we ask, let there be nourishment for the underfed and underpaid. Let the supplies not be tariffed into some medical compromise. We’re endangered enough. Woman, you’re behind us now, we drivers on our lunch breaks, and we reach the opposite bank, breathing intently, seeing the footpath you walked up, and seeing how far you came on foot to get here. We imagine your summoned intent. We grip our wheels. Sleep well, citizen, we hold you in our hearts, we who often have our walking shoes ready but today drive on by to eat again. ∯