Rope Bridge

It twists and bucks in the wind, or under the weight

of a white man, twenty, a college student, who moves

from rung to rung, knees bent and locked, hands tight

on the swaying rails. It's not really dangerous,

the sides are webbed, if he slips he won't go through-

not all the way. But he can't keep his trunk

centered over his feet, can't catch the rhythm

of the tilting slats they ride, and he wills each one to lift

and lurch him forward, whereupon the bridge

pitches as if to mock his clumsy steps.

At last he struggles forward to his goal,

the end where the ropes rise steeply to meet

a plate of anchored metal. And coming to meet him

a woman folds her clipboard to her chest,

her hair ruffles in the wind-he wasn't imagining things,

it's a windy day, the bridge still sways and rocks.

His legs are a little weak. She smiles at him,

tucks her hair behind her ear, says Just a few questions.

I don't know what she asks him, only that later,

when his pulse has slowed, someone else gives

him a test: The assistant you met at the bridge-

did you find her attractive? How attractive?

__Very __Somewhat __Not at all.

What does she think of him, does she prefer him

to the control group, the men who visit her

one by one in her office, her clipboard flat on the desk?

Does she feel tender toward him as he comes to her,

staggering like a drunk, groping half-blind,

walking his hands along the graceful ropes?

For he is the one most likely to answer Very,

since he is now part of a classic experiment

on the attribution of a heightened state

(his quickened pulse, the trembling in his knees).

And one by one, the men who crossed the bridge,

who did not fall, chose love for their reward,

saw it coming to meet them, smiling in welcome.

Who would say: it is fear that takes my breath,

that wets my palms, that spins my heart in my chest-

the fear that sleeps in me, easily roused

from its light sleep, with wind, with ropes, with words?