Arnold Skemer

The Throg’s Neck Bridge

In the morning fog
the greenish towers rise
through the mists of obscurity,
cables stretching down through the dampness.
The bridge hovers over the rooftops
desolate against the shifting winds,
overarching the turbid waters.
Its lines seem indistinct,
blending into the moist air
in the atmospheric haze
and yet it is sustained there
suspended above the waters
adrift in some alternate reality,
disconnected from the lives on shore,
a ganglion from the island to the mainland
subject to nature's eternal threat.
The visual essence remains in the mind
painted as an impressionistic tableau,
hiding the disconnects of physical reality
and the tenuousness of human projects.

 

Arnold Skemer, born 1946 in the Bronx. Attended Queens College. Federal employee for 38 1/4 years. Editor of ZYX, a largely poetry magazine.