Bridges
I’ve saved three from suicide.
Three bridges.
Three bodies of water.
The first was a rung-out Hausfrau
on the iron bridge across the Stausee(?) –
(or another bridge across a German river, in a city)
near my home town – Essen.
Her weight in banknotes
would not buy her baby milk-powder.
I did nothing,
other than say – ‘Such a sunset.
The sky is jubilant with colour.’
She moved off
pulling her shawl close.
Two years later,
1925, Paris – Pont Neuf.
The woman with five names
stares down into dark waters.
I did nothing,
other than say – ‘Where can a doormat
get a drink around here?’
We moved off,
into the Quartier Latin.
Four decades pass.
I’m midway on the Golden Gate.
They’d say, if they survived, which they don’t,
that when you hit, the water is concrete,
it shatters your spine into a thousand fragments.
The mists are rolling into the City.
They are softening my history.
I start to go …lean…
(I) pull back
(I) do nothing
(I) move off.
Jürgen Olschewski has published a novel (The Blue Box), a book of short stories (The Chocolate Room and Other Stories), and a collection of poems (After School). He has published stories and poems in magazines and anthologies.