Patrick Cahill’s poem “Fable” from his 2025 poetry collection If we are the forest the animals dream (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2025) has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Fable
El puente es tuyo
This is the way you enter the place
why
because the footbridge is yours
why
because it calls you here to feel its sway
why
because you were found among the stars
so
the stars became a storm became a snow a scrim
a screen of water a sheet of air
and
an alligator waits for you beneath the bridge
why
because beneath his memory lurks a winter gaze
and
he has a voice a second voice for you
go on
as light falls across the reeds and warms his blood
isn’t there another way
no
will it console him
what
my second voice
you will never know
or bring me to his jaws
till you cross the bridge the swaying bridge
you will never know