Under the Iron Bridge

A man is fishing under the iron bridge.
If I watch him watching the water, I see he is lost
in thought. His morning dream came with him.
His children are soft-voiced with pain; the dream

is a wheel where they turn to tell him sorrow is gain.
The way he sets his spine to the ironwork
is a drag-line of grief: loss or abandonment. The lure
snags, bright metal, triple-hooked, a fish broken-backed;

he trawls it through the wash and lets it lie: he isn’t here
for that. There’s a flask in his tackle-box. He’ll drink it dry.
People on the bridge go hand over hand,
keeping time; they come to the edge; their heels

drum the boardwalk. The music is shared but unheard,
steps perfectly matched, but unknown. Look now:
he’s asleep and falls in with the dance but dances alone.
Later, he gathers fragments from the dream

where it blurred and broke open: masks that once
were faces, hands turning cards, long shadows
he can neither outpace nor disown. The wheel is locked off.
The children tell him there’s nothing to be done.