We see our faces, two of us,
propped on our hands,
images changing in the current,
a breeze stroking the ravine.
Above us, our car parked in a hurry,
slants off the black highway.
The farmer rolling his tractor across the bridge
glances down and might surmise
city people are fishing or digging arrowheads,
not trying to divine our own narcissus
or compare what we say with what we are.
For me, its course muddies sacred
in the afternoon glow, a relic, centuries old,
the bridge an afterthought.
For her, it is enough they lived here,
Shawnee Indians, they and their children,
faces turned toward the sun,
watching hawk and owl and the circling of clouds.
The water shows us nothing
but smooth stones.