The Bridges of Madison County

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Italy to Iowa, 1965
It had been ages since I last heard a voice that wasn’t my own. Before you, it was only the creaking of the splintered floorboards of the veranda, the cries of the cicadas at noon. I cannot recall much of what happened after I heard your truck rattling into my driveway, asking me for directions to the Bridge. But I remember leaning against the fence, picking up my shoes, telling you I’d take you there. In the unforgiving Iowa heat, I shuffled into your passenger seat, and my skin stuck with sweat to the worn dark leather seat of your Chevy.  

I cupped the rushing wind with my hand out of the window as we listened to it drowning Dinah Washington’s voice on the radio. You raised your hand off the steering wheel to retrieve your cigarettes from the glove box, accidentally brushing against my leg. You were sorry. I wasn’t. We huddled quickly around your lighter to contain our new flame. You fixed your eyes onto the road, then back on to me. I forgot how good it was to smoke! It was intoxicating just to be near you.

You hosed the dirt and dust off you once we got home, and you dried restlessly in the warm wind like laundry. I watched you from inside the house, pausing near the pans to check my reflection. I swept my hair away from my eyes and my palms covered my cheeks as I blushed. I thought how odd it was that a man, a stranger, passing through this idle lifeless town, was now alone with me, alive, in my kitchen. Here you were, pacing on the linoleum, pouring me a beer, leaning against the sink, offering to help cook. I thought how intimate this was, that everything my hands would touch would find their way into your mouth. What you taste, I would taste, too. 

If this was all that fate allowed us to have on this day, driving through the meadows, helping me in the kitchen, cold wet glasses of beer against my cheek, this may just be enough. For you would leave my life, and return to yours, still smelling of me. 

 


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