FAUST STREET BRIDGE

When the cold has cheated 

its way down into Texas,

and the wet orange leaves 

carpet Faust Street Bridge,

and we've all forgotten 

to wear our windbreakers:

The Guadalupe is spilling

over the shallow dam.

My sister speaks of life's

little things that add up

to the big things: the coffee

is the morning; the morning

is the job; the job is on the bridge,

and the bridge is historic:

each picture of gray steel

is a narrative waiting for

a couple of characters.

And my sister and I are quieted
by the digraph of the Guadalupe

flowing over the dam into itself,

and then a family of three

thumps upon the bridge,

all of us in a new history.