More from the Winter 1983 issue of Bridge:

The Pulse
Arthur Sze

A woman in a psychiatric ward
is hysterical; she has to get a letter
to God by tomorrow or

the world will end. Which root
of a chamisa grows and grows?
Which dies? An analysis of

the visual cortex of the brain
cofines your world-view even as you
try to enlarge it? I walk

down an arroyo lined with old tires
and broken glass, feel a pulse,
a rhythm in silence, a slow

blooming of leaves. I know
it is unlikely, but feel I could
find the bones of a whale

as easily as a tire iron.
I shut my eyes, green water flowing
in the acequia never returns.