Poetry: Girder

Gird­er
–Nan Cohen
From Rope Bridge

The sim­plest of bridges, a promise
that you will go forward,

that you can come back.
So you cross over.

It says you can come back.
So you go forward.

But even if you come back
then you must go forward.

I am always either going back
or com­ing for­ward. There is always

some­thing I have to carry,
some­thing I leave behind.

I am a fig­ure in a log­ic problem,
stand­ing on one shore

with the things I can­not leave,
look­ing across at what I can­not have.