Dan Enache Poet Free verse

The Bridge of Flesh

The Bridge of Flesh

I laid myself upon the ground, a bridge of flesh across the world's ravine,
I made my spine into a plank for footsteps of the never-seen,
I hoped that they would look down low and read my sacrifice in skin,
but their hurried soles have never learned the alphabet of wounds within.

I made myself a doormat at the door of those who never wipe their feet,
the dust of all their roads dug into me like one long winter, wide and deep,
I thought my humble bowing would bloom gratitude inside their gaze,
but gratitude won't sprout in eyes that trample beings all their days.

The unseen sacrifice is a candle burning in a sealed-up tomb,
it burns for no one, lighting only walls of a murdered dream's gloom,
whoever lays themselves as rug beneath another's climbing quest,
should know: no one lifts their eyes to see the plank beneath their steps.

I carried them across the waters on my shoulders, bridge and mast,
and when they reached their higher shore, they threw me to the sea at last,
they never turned their heads to watch the cold wave swallow me below,
to them I was only the road — and roads are forgotten as they go.

But from this night I'm learning to gather my vertebrae back into a tower,
to be no more a footpath for the ones who wore me down each hour,
love is not the same as making of yourself a stair for blinded heels,
whoever feeds upon your knees will never know the debt they steal.

I rise up from the dust now slowly, my bones ringing like a bell new-cast,
whoever wants to cross the ravine can leap its echo unsurpassed,
from now on I'll be a shore, not a bridge — who comes must swim the strait,
and I'll give myself to only those who never would have walked my weight.

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