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I grew up with the Francis Scott Key Bridge. The first and only boyfriend I ever had drove me across it on a first date in one of those cars where if he took a turn too hard and fast, I might slide across the single front bench to join him. But of course, he was a gentleman and never played any of those games. (RIP Doc, miss you still.)

The Key Bridge was my horizon line for years, especially after I transitioned to academia and could see it easily from the top floor of my institution, looking out across the harbor. This view, when I met a colleague there on the 9th floor shortly after the bridge fell:

The bridge fell: In March 2024, the Dali struck the Key in the dead of night. The middle section collapsed on impact. Six construction workers died, which was heartbreaking. But what was extraordinary was that the timing and the rapid response of frontline personnel kept more deaths at bay. (Thank you to those workers who stopped the traffic and alerted the construction crew on the bridge.)

I wrote a poem then—Key, shared by The Hopkins Review—a poem that channeled the workers, that channeled my family’s long history in Baltimore and in the components of a bridge like this one, made of steel. That channeled my work in occupational health. That channeled a devastating spring.

A year later, in the middle of a worse spring (I’m still reeling from how that is that possible), I wrote another—Chessie: three portraits, out now in SpecPoVerse. (Shout out to Miguel and Michael for another spectacular issue!)

Both poems lean in on grief, but I like to think the second has both the light-heartedness that spec poetry can bring as well as a deeper political meaning. My work in occupational health is being extinguished; my beloved federal agency that cares only about worker health (NIOSH)—and cares far less about regulation (that’s an OSHA thing)—is all but gone. I think fewer than 25 dedicated NIOSH workers remain at the main branch. Right–workers died in the Key Bridge collapse. Workers were the heroes who rescued some and kept others from entering the danger zone.

So [Chessie–the Loch Ness Monster-like cryptid of the Chesapeake Bay–might say] Peace, out, America. This girl wants no part of your wreckage. Please note the last glimpse of her fin on your surveillance network. (It’s a middle finger.)

Would that I could join her. I think that is half of the ending of the poem, that grief on what we both specifically (the bridge) and collectively (occupational health, public health, science writ large) have lost.

While the cryptid might Peace-Out, I am here to stay. Sure, family obligations, plus too old to move (never mind that most of my daylilies will not take a Canadian, European or Australian transplant well, assuming I can get the import permits).

No, I’m committed to stay as much for those who remain. Of course, we’re all struggling, but that’s a different poem for another day. Alas for all of us—for both the different poem and the other day—coming right up. Cue the hero-to-zero trope (wait, is it a trope? I thought it was zero-to-hero?!) in an upcoming Star*Line.