The Bridge

where was I really at that moment
when she said I should not let the past
pass me by, for I'd be walking behind it
while believing I was getting away from it.

were those words, uttered unexpectedly,
almost as an afterthought, what made me
stop, still clutching my suitcase, or something
I thought I'd glimpsed in the dense coppice.

as I watched her walk across the bridge,
two pear-shaped plastic bags in her hands
that held the whole future of her past
rocking in perfect harmony with her gait.

She stopped in the middle and glanced
back at me, the look on her face puzzled
and scared because I was not behind her:
Why aren't you coming? her body suddenly

awhirl in a grotesque pirouette, her hair
swaying like golden wheat in a gust
of wind, while I was trying to tell
myself that I had not heard anything,

and the only thing I was supposed to do
was to wheel about, drop my suitcase
like a dead weight, and start to run,
zig-zagging back toward my future.