Watershed

That bridge was a New York watershed

for Crane, an image both private

and public that determined his legacy.

Watersheds are like that. They stem

from images so ordinary, so likely

to be dismissed by others,

so random in the scheme things.

Until the pen pulls them out

of the riffraff of sights and sounds,

the bell jar that separates their sample

for closer examination, the probe

of penciled dissection and brooding.