For the 5th anniversary of the 35W bridge collapse, Minnesota poet laureate Joyce Sutphen reads her poem "Someone Just Like You."
For the 5th anniversary of the 35W bridge collapse, Minnesota poet laureate Joyce Sutphen reads her poem "Someone Just Like You."
SPEAKER 1: Minnesota poet laureate Joyce Sutphen's poem for the fifth anniversary of the 35W bridge collapse is called Someone Just Like You.
SPEAKER 2: Someone Just Like You. Whoever you were crossing the bridge earlier in the day, you went from one side to the other, barely noticing the river, the way you were held up in the sky by a fragile and faulty design.
You crossed over one car in a lane of blue, silver, and black, tapping your fingers on the wheel, changing the station to catch the weather report, picking up your cell phone to say you were on the way home. You were early that day, or a bit later, but everything else was about the same, though the bridge shook slightly. A bird flew out from beneath the railing.
Someone looked up and saw a flash of blue. It only took a minute, and you were headed north or south, and someone else was crossing, someone just like you, feeling the sky falling, the world collapsing beneath them-- that other side now more impossible than the moon.
Digitization made possible by the National Historical Publications & Records Commission.
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