Bridge

By Andrew Cox

I wrote the verse. I wrote the chorus. This is all bridge. To take me back before the bees lifted my father out of the hospital bed and took him back to the hive. Before the bobcats adopted my mother and made her queen. Before my sister let the air out of the balloon she called her heart. Before the numbers etched on the pills backflipped through scene after scene in the lens. Before the car wreck and broken steering wheel and the voices from outer space. Before the dog who followed me everywhere was poisoned and left to die. Before the tornado followed the mother and the three small kids driving home in the rickety car. This is all bridge. To take me back to growing pains and a right leg shaking in bed while I try to sleep. Before the day that started my birthday. Before the verse like no other laid in the grass waiting to attack.

Andrew Cox is the author of The Equation That Explains Everything, (BlazeVOX [Books] 2010), and the chapbooks, This False Compare (2River View, 2019) and Fortune Cookies (2River View, 2009). He edits UCity Review.

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