Washington

i. Shear
Eighteen spans, massive 
Trembling softly
Soothing and rocking, murmuring
Forgetfulness, abnegating the air
The space beneath 
The commuters hung aloft
   Steel and concrete, manmade
Piles driven deep, riverbed anchors
Towering to brace
His vertebrae
Cooling drops condensing 
Salt air drifting in 
From estuary, cove and inlet
Soothe his pebbled skin
His task is far from easy
A minor Atlas bearing 
Stress and strain—incalculable!
   No complaints from him
Unless one considers those
Transitory groans and
Pops of weary joints
Easily drowned in the
Steady roar of inertia 
   A gate from East to West he  keeps
   From stately past to present
   Bearing us up, holding us aloft!
   Trembling softly
Uncomplaining
Shear, not sheer
(Like a woman’s negligee
Har har har)
   Because if the bridge was sheer
(And not sheared)
   We wouldn’t have been caught with 
Our pants around our ankles!
But no one jokes like this 
At RIDOT this late winter
Not aloud, not after dispatches from
Young engineers, burrowing
Into pigeon-fouled catacombs
With cameras and flashlights
Drawings held tight like 
Ancient scrolls, trembling as they    witness
   Tie-down rods in twain
Sheared!
Shit, they murmur 
This is way worse than we thought
Revelations drowned in 
The steady roar of inertia

ii. The Buck
Arising, a manmade storm
   A shitstorm, a scandal brewing
   The whitehaired men, weathering
   Neckties flapping, hard hats held 
Fast against the winds
   Texting, always texting, as if thumbing 
The rosary invoking 
Sublime catechisms 
Of sobriety and thanks—
It is hard for me to express
to you in words the depth
of appreciation I have
for the support and leadership
you provide to me and my team
The whitehairs link their arms, knees 
Bent, tired backs tensed, forming
   A power structure, engineered
And constructed against
   the landing of the buck
The men tremble in knowledge of
Its terrible weight
Smiling at fundraisers, shaking
   Hands massaging their temples in
   Emergency meetings they tremble
The buck's terrible weight!
The shitstorm, foul clods and their 
Indelible stains, hurled heedless
ProJo and BoGlo, Turn to 10
Human trusses deflect
   Shift, even sag beneath
The buck pressing heavy
Ponderous and gross, sniffing 
At their napes and ears
   But they do not break!
The buck heaves slowly
Its terrible weight!
And rolls on
And on, anon!
   To other bridges in other states 
Other painful failures of our 
Crumbling infrastructure
As if precipitating out
From some foreordained progression
An emissary arrives
To advance the scenario further
Lo! America’s Mayor
(For the title’s former bearer 
Has become woefully unfit—
An addled buffoon colluding
With dye run down his cheeks)
   Like some imperial bishop
In vestments of fluorescent 
Orange and silver stripe 
He dispenses the benediction
Tacit indemnification
Precious royal pardon—
If that repair project were not 
undertaken, the inspections that caught 
this potentially deadly flaw 
would not have happened
There’s a very real risk that residents 
would have found out through 
a collapse

iii. Washington
This vital behemoth, 
Of broad back and infinite patience
Has borne a billion 
Dour commutes, countless ventures and 
Homecomings, spring vacations
Fall returns, beach days and 
getaways
In his history also—
Carnage, twisted metal, blood and
Broken glass, fires that
Scorched his skin, men and women alike
Careless, drunk and swerving, mocking 
His very purpose
Washington, he was called
The westbound Washington Bridge
    Abides, trembling
Once burden-bearer, now burden 
Used up, deficient, defunct, condemned
Awaiting the foreman's machines
To tear his concrete flesh

iv. Reclamation
What's going on here she said
As astride their bikes they stood
   Behind them Van Leesten, sun-bathed 
Gawping and uncertain, wondering
Wherefore this chaos approaching
A parade or some such gewgaw
Her companion rejoined, squinting 
Studying the vanguard for meaning 
Recalling dimly the Festa, where
Young Corleone made his bones

All at once, the facsimile loomed 
Towering, a white Suburban built
Larger than life, festooned 
With little trees and rosaries
Wiseass bumper stickers, borne 
Up on twenty-twos, borne up 
On the shoulders of commuters
City, state and federal 
Administrators, politicians clutching 
Ribbon-cutting scissors, 
Engineers with laptops, 
Dealership financiers, auto
And home insurers, union 
Men and women, every single one in total
Solidarity with the mission

The car gods bay for blood
Her companion murmured, man 
Shall pay obeisance
And lesser gods shall perish
   Her reply, aborted as 
A bollard flew overhead
   Hurled with vehement rage
Years of unearthly spite
And in the procession smiling
The folk reverently approaching
The ark, to stuff dollars in the 
door-gaps
Hoisting children aloft, for 
Little hands to learn the motions
Anointing the while the icon
Beer transubstantiating 
To turtle wax, to full synthetic 
To regular unleaded
A few were jostled harshly
Or in a careless stumble, caught
Before the bogus coach
   Grille-struck and mowed under
Pedestrians in the last
As inertia roared about them
   Bollard after bollard flew and
In the taillight glow
   Figures danced and whirled,
With cone-shaped hats and brushes
Agents of revanche, 
Awake in joyful trembling 
Ecstatically restriping 
Inch by careful inch 
The stolen holy pavement

   What fresh car hell is this?
She entreated, and
Hearing no word in answer the two
Mounted and rode in fear 
Trembling
As previously was their custom 
Before the fleeting respite of
The South Water Street urban trail, 
Fleeing, before the marchers 
Singing
In gleeful, boisterous shouts

HERE IN MY CAR
I FEEL SAFEST OF ALL
I CAN LOCK ALL MY DOORS
IT'S THE ONLY WAY TO LIVE—