Jump

She’s standing on the edge of a bridge, her arms are outstretched, her eyes meet mine from a million miles distant. The wind whips her hair around, the long strands stinging her face. She’s laughing. I miss the moment when her body leans past that critical angle, when her center of gravity is no longer pulled toward the pavement, but to the river. A graceful arc in a captured moment, she hangs suspended. I feel like an intruder when something in my mind snaps a picture, fixing this image against the backs of my eyelids like a playbill that will reappear against every wall, tree, window and post.



She hits the water with a smack and the breath I’ve been holding explodes out of me.