It took spring, a mist diffusing germination, a light at the entrance of a forest, and a chance walk at leisure to make possible a view of the flowers there. The books lie open, and the books make sense like spring rolling through its months. Then they roll on and then make no sense. The equator is a roundness found everywhere. Life at the equator is fatness and sleep. The rolling you feel is the rolling of whales northward. Expectation is the expectation of sunlight on a whale's back, up from sounding.
You look down Wilshire Boulevard to a white sea. A child hops crosswalk stripes, holding a hand. Two headlights this morning lingered like a snakebite, white dots casing or patrolling the neighborhood as I left. I slowed down, but the mystery car did not overtake me. I turned, but the car did not cross the intersection in my rear-view mirror, nor did the sun traverse the sky any lower. I returned to play again in a body leaping white stripes, collecting bright things against whatever was dingy or dull with my own two hands.
Lawrence Bridges is best known for his work in the film and literary worlds. His poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, and The Tampa Review. He has published three volumes of poetry: Horses on Drums, Flip Days, and Brownwood. As a filmmaker, he created a series of literary documentaries for the National Endowment for the Arts’ Big Read initiative, which include profiles of Ray Bradbury, Amy Tan, Tobias Wolff, and Cynthia Ozick. His photographs have appeared in the Las Laguna Art Gallery 2020, Humana Obscura, Wanderlust, the London Photo Festival, and have been displayed in the ENSO Art Gallery, Malibu, California. Find him online at lawrencebridges.com and on Instagram @larrybridges.