AFTER THE FLOOD

Dominic Creed

The Ponts des Arts collapsed during the early hours of the morning. You were waiting for me.
            I imagine you looked cute, standing by one of the ornate lamp posts, mind swirling like the water below. I bet you were zipping and unzipping your back pocket the way you do after we argue, expelling any nervousness.
            I’m looking down into the Seine, at the plank mountain newly formed, and the body about to be hoisted from its jagged valleys.
            I wonder if the Seine held you in its chill embrace while you sank. If it gently rocked you with a lullaby of muffled sirens and screams, while your body took in water, and displaced oxygen.
            I’d like to understand this sensation. Maybe then I’d feel closer to you; water flooding my lungs, cascading through the chambers of my chest, bursting through the tips of my veins. It would saturate my bone-marrow too, so I could join with the Seine in its ebbs and flows. Then, I’d feel you. My currents would lift your rigid body off the riverbed, caress your blue lips, set you down on petrol-soaked plastic along the bank. A stranger might find you there, fill your lungs with recycled air to displace the water. You’d be free of me then, except for the taste lingering against the back of your tongue.
            But I’ll never know what it feels like to drown.
            The body lifts from the water, and I wonder if you’re down there, hating me still.
            I click the padlock with our initials onto what remains of the railing, and wander home.