Expect Delays on the Edison Bridge

by Philip Vassallo

The Raritan River is the same
flat black metallic sheet
each time I cross it in my Chevy
at sixty mph. Is that because
I never see it when standing still?

The Edison Bridge above it
is a different story,
always something different:
road repairs, stalled cars, accidents.
Today there was a fatality
on the downhill side of the bridge.
I was at the bridge's peak
so I saw it all:
the cops blocking traffic,
the overturned car,
the smashed corpse of a working girl
being removed by the emergency squad.
A paramedic flung a bloodied silk scarf
the girl had loosely tied around her neck.
It blew off the bridge into the river
one hundred feet below.

This would be a long delay
and I was already late for work.
I got out of my car,
leaned over the bridge's railing,
and looked down the river.
There was the girl's scarf
flowing downstream beside a barge
before it disappeared to the river's bottom.

Then I noticed the river looks the same moving
as it does standing still.

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