I dreamed the bridge was listening back

I'm standing on a truss bridge I've inspected a hundred times, but the rivets are all speaking in small clicks, like a confession I'm not supposed to hear. The deck is warm under my boots, warm like it's alive, and when I press my ear to the main girder I can hear traffic moving through it the way blood moves through a wrist. I wake up and the steel is quiet again, but I can't stop thinking maybe it was never the bridge talking — maybe it was the river it stands over, using the metal as a throat.