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WALKING ON WATER
	
Saint of the Golden Gate Bridge
they called her, blessing the
crowd with her tears, performing

to the cheers of the enchanted,
flinging, first her pink raincoat,
her high heeled shoes, fluttering

down like doves, dancing, twisting
out of her red satin dress, a naked
Magdalene on her way to heaven.

The distance for walking the water
is always two feet, suspended in
mid-air before the dive, hands

whirling over her head, gracefully,
then the splash, the blue on blue
of water. The scream; a long

stretch of scar. This is the way
it ends, Sister, your knees jacked
up around your chin. A wild eyed

woman walking on water. Yes,
Sister, yes. You were floating,
safe above the water, like egrets
hovering against the sky.
We saw the confusion of flesh on
water. A dark-haired woman who
 
knew she had found the ocean,
spread-eagled on her unhealed
promises, imperfectly still, her

feet out of running room, hands
out of time, and the silence
always loses the beat.

She lived dying, waiting on the
edge of life, an end of meaning.
I’m brave, she was known to have

said once. I have courage. Be
my liar, as she would say. But
she was only brave on water. Only

that. Yet, there aren’t many who
could face this, who could look
into the eyes of death like a lover.

Surely she caressed his eyes.
Surely she twice sang his name,
a woman of sorrows drowning in

sin. She whirled and twisted.
The watchers were confused. They
didn’t know this act. They didn’t

even know themselves anymore.
We all became strangers.
She won finally. She heard the

 
cries, saw the vision. The night
came sooner that day. In a different
month, she would have turned to us,

appearing from doorways, a five
and dime hooker who lost all her
johns. They won’t be your liars,

Sister. Life stacks emptiness
with soberness, saving up the
numbered days of your life that

cover you like water, wave by
wave, until the dreams become
visions. They say men are

more sensible. They not only
listen to the wisdom of
mathematics, they learn not to be

hysterical. In spite of this, they
fail discipline. They have a love
of falling too. A love of water.

We pulled her out, the water
washing over us. The sand gritting
our way back to shore, back to reason,

back to all ways of living. Two
old players questioning the silence,
caressing the heaven in her.


Mark Randolph Conte
Copyright Poem magazine, 2000
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