Adrienne Rich — After Apollinaire & Brassens

When the bridge of lovers bends over the oilback river and we see our own endings through eyes aching and blearing when the assault begins and we’re thrown apart still longing when the Bridge of Arts trembles under the streaked sky when words of the poets tumble into the shuddering stream where who knew what joy would leap after what pain what flows under the Seine Mississippi Jordan Tigris Elbe Amazon Indus Nile and all the tributaries who knows where song goes now and from whom toward what longings