GOING TOO FAST TO STOP

Something has fallen off the truck
What’s in the package
That tumbled from the truck
Still taped up
It bounces on its corners
As another truck blows past it

What’s in the package
Bouncing along the concrete wall
The wall between the bridge
The bridge and the gray cold water
With its murky facets
Below the low dawn sky

Is there something of ourselves
Wrapped in the package
That will never be opened
The package bouncing fatefully
Only a short wall
Between it and the water

It seems to jump by itself
But that’s only the momentum of its fall
Whatever of ourselves is inside
Is at the mercy of its fate
It has no inner direction whatsoever

But there’s something in that goddamn package
I tell you
It’s jumping by itself
Like a Mexican jumping bean
There’s something inside
And it has fallen off the truck
Still taped up!