Travel Memory #327 by Edward Atkins

Once, outside of Taos, New Mexico, I stood on a bridge that spans the Rio Grande. The great desert river flowed a mere six hundred feet below the bridge: a white arching monstrosity constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers to commemorate a US Army victory over a group of Native Americans holding out against the imminent wave of Modernism. Unable to help myself I spat and wondered what I would experience during a free fall of such magnitude. Previous to my test and subsequent pondering, a local man had told me a number of tales of couples that had made a lover’s leap from the bridge. I had to (and still have to) admire such dedication, such affliction. Is there a gesture more romantic than this (two lovers floating toward a river that divides a desert, that gives breath to what life persists on this barren plane- their departure point being a marvel of engineering, a false connection between two land masses that were meant to remain irrevocably apart, a prosthetic of transportation, a monument to colonialism and genocide- I saw the slow motion splash, the entrance into their essence, the water, the element they are closest to, letting what gave them life now take life through impact not immersion- their broken bodies eventually tumbling into the arms of the sea, baptized now, living forever in memory, never letting time diminish what love had granted)? I wondered if I would have the guts to make such a leap. Was I capable of such a love? As I watched the river move with grave indifference to all surrounding it, a series of pops echoed through the gorge. I looked up to see a group of young men on the right bank, one of whom was holding a pistol. He fired several more rounds into the gorge. I shivered, gave a reverent bow to the river valley below and quickly walked back to my car.