CHRISTOPHER DEWEESE
from The Confessions
I was the Brooklyn Bridge
and you were 5,000 schmucks
nobly falling
for the trick the sky wrote around me
I mean believing in me,
a profitable gravity
promised in fake deeds
and my entire purpose.
Have you heard the one about
the man with no ankles?
He tied a noose around me.
When he jumped, someone else jumped
and cut it
so the first man fell,
his cheeks red and blooming
like imagined Panamas.
The land of opportunity
welcomed greenhorns eagerly,
ladies dancing
pyramid-scheme waltzes
just past the immigrant docks.
The story I wanted to tell was too long
so I settled down
and bid you cross me,
a confidence game of a different kind.