Dream fathers
By Ed Madden
We drive across the bridge, late at night,
a hundred feet or so of clattering boards—
no rail, no rim, just jagged planks, and river
flowing slow and brown below. The bridge
collapsed last year. I cross it every night
in sleep—sometimes alone, sometimes with him—
but always away from home. The bridge’s end
may veer; each night I go someplace else,
dark cypress swamp on either side.
One night my father is the driver and the car.
He opens up the door of his side,
and I climb in. I cross the bridge again,
riding in the body of my father.
Dream fathers and more of Ed’s poetry can be found in his most recent book of poetry, Prodigal: Variations, 2011. Ed is the poetry editor for Jasper Magazine.
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About Jasper
What Jasper Said is the blogging arm of Jasper – The Word on Columbia Arts, a new written-word oriented arts magazine that serves artists and arts lovers in the Columbia, SC area and its environs in four ways:
Via Print Media – Jasper is a bi-monthly magazine, releasing in print six times per year in September, November, January, March, May & July, on the 15th of each month. Jasper covers the latest in theatre and dance, visual arts, literary arts, music, and film as well as arts events and happenings;
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