Suspended Belief by Megan Nichols

It’s nothing to untie a string. To let fabric rise and float.

Suspended Belief

by Megan Nichols

Swimming beneath the swinging bridge
so much is Ozark green—the water's surface,

our necks, my skin beneath your silver.
Face to face we bob, our feet softly kicking

each other. It’s nothing to untie a string. To
let fabric rise and float. Who could see? Everyone

is working but us. We have to make a choice:
Move to the riparian zone, do this under dense 

cover, wrapped in smartweed, poison ivy.
Or brave smooth bank, laid out like a brash snake

heating itself over polished stone. I keep treading
in possibility and this is why I’m with you: you pull me 

by the wrist, through the water, out of options.
Vehicles begin to rattle above us, freeing rough

chert between the steel cables and rotting beams.
I collect the fallen rocks in the concave of my back.

Eyes shut, I could be anywhere; we could be anything.
They could be diamonds. This could be dancing.

First published in Baltimore Review, 2025.