To Wilmington Swing Bridge

House on the swing bridge, house in the air,
standing aside for the barge from upriver,
let my dragging anchors not snag
on your cables while I confer
with my first mate, athwartships,
pondering our heading and draft.
The forecast promises shopping trolleys,
my lightermen poke at the muddy soup,
but I swim to the burger van and regain
my ship’s cat’s perch from terra non firma,
the forty-five degree angle of your
compliance to my chuntering purpose.
The dry bulk in the yards we pass
will be reduced to nothingness
and utility; my cargo exists
only in the subjunctive yet not one
grain shall be lost. A lost swan
incubates a nest of golf balls
and a stray hand replaces the flowers
in the bridge house window: red flowers.
House on a bridge, I hear the gears scream,
I feel each tooth of the terrible works
connect and, greased up, haul you back

to the fixity of empty air.