NewPoetry

Rob Winger

The summer stream, an easy
silt arm, follows the High Marsh
Road past cattle and grass

into peaked, earthbound shade,
the crossing’s Howe truss plan
topped with a real roof’s shingles

so I have to snap my handlebar’s
warning bell into the
stillness settled there.

There are nests, inside, in the
rafters. There are rectangles
cut from the wooden sides, offering

banquet-camera views of the salt
marsh, each a finely framed
improvement on looking.

Were there no dusted trucks roaring
over gravel towards this century-old
span above the river trout, were there

no bank books awaiting balance
or oil-barrel dividends
or tilted, late-inning rally caps,

were there no papers or spines
or singing bowls to ring with the ways
in which we hold out hope, we could

lock open our kickstands and ascend
into our first apartments, here, held up
by a solo truss, by our only constant.