They built a fence where Emmanuel Senior jumped 
off the Damen bridge. 

It’s three feet wide. 
The bridge is three-thousand feet long. 

They made it just as tall as him too—five feet, 
six inches. 

It stands perfectly rectangular, like a metal frame 
for a painting that isn’t there anymore. 

Strangers stop by it every now and then, clutching 
the wire mesh and stuffing paper into the holes 

as traffic whizzes by. Maybe with enough crumpled wads 
his heart will reappear. 

Except the wind pushes it all out 
when no one is looking. 

Did the wind push Emmanuel? 

Or did it try to pull him back 
on the bridge, only to lose its balance too? 

I don’t know. I think that might be 
the wrong question, and 

wrong questions get answers 
with holes in them. 

The answer to Emmanuel’s leap 
has a hundred and eighty-seven holes in it; 

I’ve watched the sun set 
through each one of them.

Tomorrow morning, nine-hundred 
and ninety-nine of us will hold hands 

along either side of Emmanuel’s fence 
and jump together, 

so that when they build 
our fences 

you can count how 
many different holes 

you can watch the sunset through. 
Or if you’re lucky, 

they’ll have built a net.