by Melanie Figg
The throat of the Ottauquechee River was scraped open 13,000 years ago when the Laurentide Ice Sheet retreated, leaving the region’s gemstones exposed. Much later, the Gorge became the site of suicides and tourist photos. The story of the woman holding her baby on the railing to watch the white waters, the baby falling 165 feet, the mother not thinking and jumping to retrieve her child. I thought about that woman every time we drove over that bridge, the water invisible from the car. We crossed the Gorge to get to JC Penney’s, to get to McDonald’s, to get to the highway—to get anywhere, really. I thought of her at every crossing, never the baby.
Melanie Figg is the author of the award-winning poetry collection, Trace, and a recent National Endowment for the Arts Fellow. Her poems and essays appear in Hippocampus, RUMPUS, Colorado Review, Nimrod, and dozens of others. A certified professional coach, Melanie teaches writing, offers writing retreats and works remotely with writers. www.melaniefigg.net.
A-minor 