The authorities closed the bridge from Grand Island to the mainland and I was idling near the front of the pack on the incline inching forward as they allowed us one by one around the emergency vehicles. A man had jumped; parked his car right there in the cruise lane, got out and leaped with finality over the taut cable barrier to the icy waters below. Some parked and stayed to look for the body bobbing among the ice and debris by the light of the patrol car spotlight and then by the scan of the helicopter passes in the late winter evening. I stayed. And as the authorities presence increased, dispersing the half committed rubberneckers, and the noise of the emergency vehicles and passing choppers disrupted the stillness, many more left. I stayed to record it, feeling self conscious for my queer attempt to make sense of an apparent suicide. But I knew he was asked to jump, told so, as most who do are. For example, Jesus. So I stayed and looked and watched the waters for signs of the snagged body. I sat in my warm car with the light syrupy scent of antifreeze present and wrote down any meaning I could find. What came out was a list poem. I liked its rhythm and sat repeating it like an onomatopoeia. 'Take my word for it' is what I called it - Eye, Bone, Hair, Hand, Lip, Eye, Mouth, Love. Eye, Bone, Hair, Hand, Lip, Eye, Mouth, Love. I kept saying it and drove away leaving the body to bob and my poem to flutter off into silliness. And the whole way I thought of Buttercup, her choice to come, our pleasure, and the insane wetness of her cunt leaking over her thighs like the mouth of a viscous balloon lubricating our hopes. There's joy in everything I thought, with enough time we'll draw it out of everything. Cancer, customs, death, life, desire and all.
[This is the last entry to fulfill my obligations of a year ago. Thank you to all my readers. Look to these URL's, the current one here - http://danielcosentino.blogspot.com/ and the new one here http://prosedc.blogspot.com/ for future posts and new work. One love ~Rose]
