Bridges between Us

Danni left me overnight,
breaking the hard water
with her soft body, in-between
the Brooklyn and Manhattan
where she was found
by a child chasing birds.

In the summer
her brother began to drop her
in the park where she walked,
cursed—with the same curse
she had every day since
she was 15. Cursed
with insistent breasts,
with hypnotic hips, swaying
in her blue jeans
like a pendulum—
a rhythmic blue-denim
ticking bomb.

Danni never spoke to me.
She smiled when she passed
by in the borough,
but she never really noticed
the way I wished she could
be ugly
so ugly
nobody else would want her.

Today, for the first time,
I wish she were beautiful.