Mr. and Mrs. Bridge

Lisa Bridge unties her halter top
so the sun can play unfettered
her untempered clavicle
her shoulders’ rounded notes:
Allegra.
Mr. Bridge in his upstairs bedroom
watches his daughter on the lawn
through panes of old glass
that ripple like heat risen long-ago.
The tongue of her thigh parts
the wide mouth of her shorts.
Her hair in amber rebellion
falls in the indoor quiet
like sweat beneath white linen.
With her father just the day before
she practiced Juliet from the balcony:
Wherefore art thou Romeo?

It is August.
The afternoon is sullen.
Mr. Bridge makes love to his wife,
her curlers in rows of recapitulation,
her eyes wide as a daylight owl,
irises wild in an ungardened field,
their pupils, pinpoints
of a thousand doubts surprised mid-dance,
or none. Their sheets are stained
with silence and mown grass.

Mr. and Mrs. Bridge will go
to Paris to view the Louvre.
He will admire the Winged Victory.
For the sake of tradition,
he will bury his daughter
wrapped in tea and burlap
until she, too, has no arms and head,
appearing ancient and all wings,
on the lawn, a gift for his wife.

Mrs. Bridge will join an art class
and paint a woman standing
calmly in the ocean’s surf,
holding a swan of Dresden china.
She has no feet.
Outside the gilt
of this portrait’s frame,
the firebombing has begun.

-Kitty Yanson