“Fallen bridge”

We knew the land before we knew the land
changed hands cheap.

My great-grandfather digged
up his best wives. The first give him a son
died young and uncomplaining
with room for him
to take another.

Eighty years the bridge grown old.
A ship swum through
and carried it away,
a man's pickup tied to one end
and a redhaired girl to the other, bit
like a weak bone in cold.

Before it was
the land would pace
back to back, way two men
like to shoot
but for a word hung in the air.