A Poem by Christina M. Rau
Off The Bridge
In that four seconds
I knew I had made a mistake.
Toes pointed towards the churning surface,
Ire-filled white crashes and swirls speeding closer,
Chin tucked to my chest and eyes locked on that water,
I prayed to God.
Then, after the splash, roar, silence,
Tumult of whichendisup,
Under the current, under my feet I felt
What wasn't water, what wasn't weed.
I thought,
I survived that fall
Please God please
I don't want to die by shark
But it wasn't a shark
It was a sea lion
Who carried me safely home.
Christina M. Rau is the founder of Poets In Nassau, a reading circuit on Long Island, New York.
She has published her poetry in several magazines over the past few years, including New
Graffiti, Chronogram, and The Tipton Poetry Journal. To pay the bills, she teaches college English,
and sometimes manners.