The Engineer
Halfway across the bridge
we discover an avocado,
dissected but unpitted.
The event recalls a dinner
at Claudio’s, where he tells us
how the Tacoma Narrows
was torn apart by harmony.
We talk politics, the slow bullets
of conversation fly,
a dozen secret miracles.
“I have not given up
on the dream of America,”
says he, gesturing with
the guacamole pestle.
Claudio, who leaves Smurfs
at the abutments of the bridges.
Who removes steaks early,
trusting to the heat’s inertia.
Ryan Calo is a professor and poet in Seattle, Washington, where he serves on the board of the literary nonprofit Hugo House. His poems have appeared in Wayfarer Magazine, Collateral, Raven’s Perch, Cathexis Northwest Press, and other journals and magazine.
