122. AS2

In the audience of your body and at the bridge
no angel jumps in. In the audience of your body
and the bridge where no angel jumps in,
you are left holding your life. Cold and waiting
at the bridge, with the audience of your body
declaring its love for you, and the angel doesn’t
jump in, because there is no angel and the river
has disappeared, and it is not a bridge anymore but
your bed and you are sleeping and dreaming that you are
holding your life in your hands. In love and longing,
glanceless because alone, and surrounded by the audience
of your body within you, and leaning against the railing
of the bridge where no angel leaps into the cold and
black and white water, and you have not been born so
you sleep calmly until you realize you cannot be asleep.
Asleep in your body and alone at the bridge and ready
to jump but dreaming of an angel that jumps into the water
before you jump in, but there is no water and the highway
moves like water from the cars slipping over it, and
the audience of your body is breaking into song and the
song is about a man crying at a bridge with the weight
of his life upon him and he would not be born if he
could not be born, and you jump in or he jumps in or not,
and you cannot tell if he is you, and a fox passes through
your headlights at night before a skunk passes through
and the liquor goes through you and you remember he
is alive or you are alive, or there is water, cold cold water,
below you, and he wants to jump in, but first an angel
doesn’t jump in because there are no angels. In love with
a woman who doesn’t love, or in love with a woman who
loves too much, or in love with a woman who loves love but
has forgotten who you are, or in love with a woman yearning
but not for you, or in love with a woman who can no longer
love you, or sleeping with a woman in love with you, or not
sleeping in a bed with a woman who once loved you, or sitting
beside a woman who could not prove she loves you, or loving
a woman who once loved you but later forgot how to, or in
love with a woman who is not beside you because she is sleeping
through the night as if you were a dream, and the night seems
cold to you, because you have dreamed it that way, or you feel
a cold wind on the bridge, against the railing where he is going
to jump in because he has understood his life, but an angel would
jump in first to save him, except there was no angel there and maybe
it was the Tappan Zee and a long way down and you listened
to the sound of cars passing behind you and none would stop
because none were carrying angels, so he jumped, or you jumped,
or you couldn’t tell the difference but you could feel the wind
coming up from below you, or it was the Brooklyn Bridge and
your eyes were entangled in the system of wires holding you up
and you realized he was a marionette at the exact point that he
realized you were a marionette and that he was also you, and
an angel jumped in to save you, but he drowned and couldn’t
finish reading his book. Against the railing of a bridge and
fully within the throbbing audience of your body, the sound
of clapping filling your ears, and standing upon the bridge waiting
for the bridge to move out of the way, and calling the bridge
Freemans Bridge because he wanted to be free of it all, or you
wanted the same thing, but the drop to the Mohawk was too
short, and an angel jumped in carrying his book, and the angel
fell because he had no wings, and he had no wings because
there are no angels so there are no wings for them, and you
rested your head in your hands at the bridge with an angel telling you
you were saved this time, but he is wet and sitting in a hut
drying out his book, and you are on the bridge and looking
deep into the shallow water for a hint to the future. Asleep
and dreaming, yet standing within the audience of his body and
at the bridge where no angel jumps in, and he cannot find her
in the water, and he cannot find her in his dreams, and he cannot
find her in his past, and he cannot see into the future, and still
no angel jumps into the cold water, black and white, and he hears
gunfire so he leans into it, but the sound goes through him
soft and gentle. Glycerine tears and a wind machine and a bridge
with nothing beneath it and inside a soundstage with your fists
against your head, and realizing you had done nothing in your life,
and everything fallen apart, your pockets ripped open and spilling
air onto the deck of the bridge that is the floor of the studio, and
the collected voices of the audience of your body surrounding, you,
and staring into the water that is nothing more than a floor
that only you can see, and seeing no angel not jump into
the water that isn’t there, and you jump in to save the angel
but find no angel there, and you drown, on the floor, still
searching for the angel that disappeared beneath those
pineboard waves. Maybe a knife at his throat, but his hand
on the knife, or a blade against his wrist, and maybe he
is six and sitting in a playhouse, or he has caught every
kitten in the neighborhood and there is nothing more to catch,
or standing but leaning on but against the bridge with his
head in his hands and tears dripping into the cold river
below, and maybe he jumps quickly before any angel appears,
before an angel appears and forces him to jump to save him,
because he knows there is no way he would save himself,
unless the wind blew him backwards into May or might or
maybe not, or he is simply alone on the bridge and waiting.