nine seconds

Every lonely person walks
from supermarket to bridge to stare
at apathetic currents
tracing rusted grass.
Land approaches water slowly,
creeping down to kiss and be torn
away from unearned comfort.
.
You also stand too close, and too long,
dismantled by careful mosquitoes
who carry your flesh to the river,
and to currents far beneath you.
.
Clearly,
you will be reconstructed,
fall and scrape your knee again
on this bridge,
as a child,
eyelids so carefully lowered...
.
Contrasts of stillness and water
breed vertigo,
displacing the indolent dream.
Still you will stand
too close to high ledges,
leaning,
just waiting to fall.
.
.
.