Bridge

Robert Thomas is the author of Door to Door (2002, Fordham University Press), selected by Yusef Komunyakaa as winner of the Poets Out Loud Prize, and Dragging the Lake (2006, Carnegie Mellon University Press). He has received a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and won a Pushcart Prize. He lives with his wife in Oakland, California, and works as a legal secretary in San Francisco.

CONTENTS

Picnic 1
Catchy Tunes 3
Albino 5
Marine Biology 7
Frankie and Johnny 9
The Gift 11
Antifreeze 13
Vissi d’arte 15
And Counting 17
Blue Angel 19
Liberty Bell 21
The Shooting Party 23
Leverage 25
Naming a Baby 27
Bridge 29
Ride of the Valkyrie 31
The Bone 33
Word Processing 35
Something Happens 37
Cause and Effect 39
Annie Hall 41
Your Majesty 43
The Lion’s Head 45
Cold War 47
Red Planet 49
The Goldilocks Zone 51
The Wall 53
New York 55
Baby’s Breath 57
Snowflakes 59
Jury 61
Of My Peers 63
Shot in the Dark 66
Capital Punishment 68
The Carrier 70
The Abysmal Plain of the Sea 72
White Noise 74
Shadow Play 76
Collateral Damage 79
Songbird 82
I’m Not There 84
Rainforest 86
The Wooden Horse 88
The Light of Reason 90
Vessel of Fire 92
Apocalypse 94
Kali 96
Joe Blow From Kokomo 97
Exhibits 100
Flowchart 102
Stonehenge 105
Camera Obscura 109
Body Integrity Identity Disorder 111
The Rock 114