by Alfred Corn

    It avails not. time nor place-distance avails not. . . -Whitman. "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"

    The bridge was a huge sentence diagram，

    You and I the compound subject， moving

    Toward the verb. We stopped， breathing

    Balloonfuls of air； and noonday sun sent down

    A hard spray of light. Sensing an occasion，

    I put my arm on your shoulder， my friend

    And brother. Words， today， took the form of actions.

    The object of the pilgrimage， 110 Columbia Heights，

    Where Hart Crane once lived， no longer existed，

    We learned， torn down， the physical address gone.

    A second possible tribute was to read his Proem

    There on the Promenade¹ in sight of the theme.

    That line moved you about the bedlamite whose shirt

    Balloons as he drops into the river， much like

    Crane's death， though he wasn't a "bedlamite"；

    A dreamer， maybe who called on Whitman and clasped

    His present hand， as if to build a bridge across time. . . .

    We hadn't imagined happenstance would lead us next

    To join with the daydreamers lined up before

    An Easter diorama of duck eggs， hatching

    Behind plate glass. The intended sentiment featured

    Feathered skeletons racked with spasms² of pecking

    Against resistant³ shell， struggling out of dim

    Solitary⁴ into incandescence⁵ and gravity， and quaking

    With the shock of sound and sight as though existence

    Were a nervous disease. All newborns receive the same

    Sentence-birth， death， equivalent triumphs.

    Two deaf-mutes walked back the same but inverse⁶ way，

    Fatigue⁷ making strangers of us and the afternoon

    Hurt， like sunburn. Overexposure is a constant

    Risk of sensation and of company. I wondered

    Why we were together-is friendship imaginary？

    And does imagination obscure or reveal its subject？

    The ties always feel strange， strung along happenstance，

    Following no diagram， incomplete， a bridge of suspense⁸. . . .

    Sometimes completed things revisited still resonate.

    I'm thinking about Crane's poem of the Bridge，

    Grand enough to inspire disbelief and to suspend it.

    The truth may lie in imagining a connection

    With him or with you； with anyone able to overlook

    Distance， shrug⁹ off time， on the right occasion. . . .

    If I called him a brother-help me with this， Hart-

    Who climbed toward light and sensation until the sky

    Broke open to reveal an acute， perfect convergence

    Before letting him fall back into error and mortality，

    Would we be joined with him and the voyagers before him？

    Would a new sentence be pronounced， a living connection

    Between island and island， for a second， be made？

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