{"id":113622,"date":"2022-06-25T17:20:39","date_gmt":"2022-06-25T21:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/?p=113622"},"modified":"2022-06-29T00:41:45","modified_gmt":"2022-06-29T04:41:45","slug":"the-other-side-of-the-bridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/the-other-side-of-the-bridge\/","title":{"rendered":"The Other Side of the Bridge"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Other Side of the Bridge<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When both of my husbands<\/p>\n

were alive, we spent<\/p>\n

Thanksgiving together,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

our feast culminating with<\/p>\n

an extended walk<\/p>\n

across the Tacoma Narrows bridge.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The two of them paused<\/p>\n

beside an iron railing<\/p>\n

so I could take photos:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

a sort of black-and-white<\/p>\n

study in contrasts, but<\/p>\n

captured in technicolor.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My ex had yellow teeth<\/p>\n

and cheeks that hung<\/p>\n

like a gaunt bulldog\u2019s.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He smoked a cigarette<\/p>\n

every fifteen minutes\u2014<\/p>\n

frail shoulders<\/p>\n

slumped in the rain,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

frantic mouth devouring<\/p>\n

smoke, like it was candy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My husband perched beside him,<\/p>\n

happy for sailboats<\/p>\n

that passed beneath our feet,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and a sun break that seemed<\/p>\n

to come out of nowhere.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No one knew both men<\/p>\n

were marked\u2014my ex-husband<\/p>\n

would be dead<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

in less than a year,<\/p>\n

my current one in three.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And I, the photographer,<\/p>\n

doomed to continue my trek<\/p>\n

across the span, alone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad no one can predict<\/p>\n

the future, or there would<\/p>\n

be no point in going on:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

still, I trudge ahead<\/p>\n

anyway, half-believing<\/p>\n

I know what awaits me<\/p>\n

on the other side of the bridge.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Other Side of the Bridge   When both of my husbands were alive, we spent Thanksgiving together,   our feast culminating with an extended walk across the Tacoma Narrows bridge.   The two of them paused beside an iron railing so I could take…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4286,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4286"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113622"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124205,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113622\/revisions\/124205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}