Bellamy Bridge, Florida — Lost Vows
by Dawg
Moss dangles from oak like unraveling veils,
the Panhandle’s heat never quite breaking the fever of old wounds.
Bellamy Bridge arches above dark, slow water–
a weathered spine, warped and splintered, sagging with ancient tunes.
Mist curls off the riverbank, exhaling memories
of vows that could not outlast the flames,
a wedding dress reduced to phosphorescent haze,
trailing beside the boards–each step a ritual, each glance a claim.
The bride’s name, Elizabeth, burns through centuries,
whispered by wind that tastes of marsh and regret.
She perished on her wedding night, her dress ablaze, a love unmet.
Some say her laughter, fragile and startled,
still flickers in the Spanish moss at dawn,
but by midnight, it’s her sorrow that reigns–
white-gowned, drifting, searching for a future forever gone.
Footsteps echo, a rhythm older than the bridge itself,
each board remembers the weight of hope, the collapse of self.
The river below shivers with cold fire,
mirrors a woman crowned in spectral light,
her eyes rimmed with longing, hands clutching the shape of a ringless night.
Each autumn, when fog presses against the pines and the river swells with secrets,
the air thickens with questions:
was it fire, fever, or heartbreak that wrought this endless bequest?
No legend grants her release, no exorcism cuts the thread,
Elizabeth waits for a husband who will never cross,
for a wedding night spent among the dead.
Bellamy Bridge endures, an altar for longing and for loss,
where vows are left unfinished,
and each footfall is shadowed by the one she’s never forgot.
If you walk here at dusk, listen–the wind rehearses her grief.
The river carries her sorrow, mile after haunted mile,
and every night, the bride paces–neither gone, nor reconciled.