Hard Working Blues
Industrial Clinic
the man on crutches,
leg
muscles ripped pushing a heavy load—
the woman, teeth clenched,
hand curling & twitching, too many hours
polishing pins—
the grandfather, wrist bound
into a stump
where his hand once was—
the woman, barely more than a
girl,
her foot a gauze ball, flesh pierced
a week before by a punching ram—
all look up
as a dust-covered boy in hard
hat comes in
wringing his hands,
swinging
his arm & groaning, blood
spraying out
across the floor—
the nurses meet him there &
usher him quickly
to a room where the doctor’s
waiting.
here comes the janitor with his
mop.
someone sighs. their eyes follow
the mop.
waiting
for a bus
some
laid-off workers shoot craps.
this
one’s won, he’s dancing around
slapping
at the losers.
The Lineup
all the
way to the door,
drawn
faces, tired eyes:
sturdy
housewives,
kids
whining at their feet,
pimple-faced
lovers,
hands on
each others’ butts,
salesman,
sharkskin & red tie,
cook,
hands wiping apron,
waitress
on her break,
tip money
in hand,
beer-bellied
factory hands
cussing
their foreman,
three
secretaries, silent,
stolid
eyes watching,
fat old
woman, nearly bald,
cane
& big purse,
bearded
bald man,
dead
cigar stump in mouth
—all
wait for tickets for
tonight’s
big Lotto jackpot,
that
castle in the country,
that kissoff for the boss,
for that
life of Riley,
that
endless sea cruise,
that end
to troubles, finally,
that way out, bright
sad
promise of
long line
of tears.
The
Landlady
a thousand dead
roaches in the sink
&
on the floor, a thousand more, crawling.
she wanted “to do
business fairly,”
but didn’t know
whom to trust.
the tenants had
tried to set the house afire,
then left, six
months back on the rent.
she wonders how to
fix the battered wall,
the smashed
ceiling, the live wire;
how she’ll keep
her finances straight,
whether her children
are growing up right.
The
Welfare Office
a fat black
woman bellows
at the face
behind the desk,
her coat billowing
about her boy
who clutches her
knees.
rows of haggard
faces wait
in a stupor.
the bureaucrats
take them one by one.
forms &
signatures, in a cubicle—
muffled conversations,
mechanical clacking:
“drove buses Saigon to
small appliance
repair?
he’s lucky, should
be no problem
once he learns
English.”
outside, bodies crowd
the light poles;
the police lift a
derelict
from a boarded
doorway.
Paint
Work
his workmen
stopped to listen;
the neighbors opened
the window.
he waved his arms
&
pointed to the new roof. his expenses:
she hadn’t paid in
two months.
he hadn’t agreed
to her painting the place.
where was the
contract? show
it.
he looked
indoors. the
chisels began again.
Slagboom
Tool & Die
Tham is tiny among
these burly Americans
shuffling thru the room,
filling out
applications.
a man turns to
me: “thirteen months I been lookin’—
no goddamn jobs
anywhere,
‘less yer a nigger er Veetnamese—“
a glance at Tham.
a door slams. an angry man pushes
past us:
“I want my steward! They’re pushin’ us
too damn hard!”
the clerk talks as if to himself.
“fled
the draft . . .
wife
& children left behind . . . “
Sang
looks to me,
then back
to Lien, who sits, hands folded.
his
countrymen are tearing up
&
this new land, so different & strange—
they
whisper in Vietnamese.
the clerk
looks up.
a job,
maybe . . . how long can we wait?
two
mechanics sit in broken glass,
one
cigarette between them
passed
back & forth,
taking
turns reefing on a stubborn wheel nut.
the poet
appears, broom & dustpan in hand.
A Suite for Antler
Miller Metals
Products Corp.
I spent three years there.
I see them now, old friends: some dead,
some
retired to African violets in tenement window sills,
some
still in the punch clock line:
Crazy
Cinda, widowed, fingers taped each morning
so they
wouldn’t bleed on parts she had to steel-wool clean,
four company-provided
aspirins dailyat 9 AM
to kill
the headaches from the roar & the fumes;
Elsie,
painted like a gypsy, Baba-Yaga nose & chin,
dead of a
heart attack in her early 50s;
Ruth,
spit-lines hanging from lip to lip
when she
opened her mouth,
bitter
when she talked of her life & the men in it,
sweet
smile when help arrived;
Hattie,
talk black woman,
in my
imagination an ancient Masai come back,
who left
for higher pay at McInerney’s
&
got married at last;
Mildred,
pock-marked face, family of 8,
renting a
farm in Belding, an hour’s drive from the city,
because
they “had to get out of this madhouse”;
Devil
Dill, aged Daisy Duck,
bitter
about the bosses, bitter about the union,
her
stories of ice men & horseshit in the streets
before
the cars totally took over;
Thelma,
old Dutch devoted Christian
who
danced real jigs with me as everybody watched, laughing!
her
retirement photo with me,
parts
under my shirt to look like big tits,
both of
us smiling, arms around each other;
Leonard,
the dough-faced set-up man, whose response to
most anything
was “har-har-har,” kind of low & away,
who
taught me soldering & how to take a paint set-up apart,
patient
with this stupid kid;
Mary,
the Polish girl who told me stories of parking,
nothing
could get her down with that
crazy kid
enthusiasm of hers,
tho I never took a ride with her when she asked;
Dewayne,
the fox-faced foreman,
short-sleeves rolled up with a pack of cigarettes enfolded,
tough,
& kind,
who later
married one of the sprayers;
&
myself, first a lugger & hi-lo driver, later
set-up,
breathing
toluol & methanol & hi-lo fumes,
deafened
in the roar of the exhaust fans,
out of
college—quit—& freshly married
shortly
after
friends
dead or mentally mutilated in
still
reeling among the horrors! wanting
something
solid, ordinary, hum-drum, to anchor to
while
weathering the war & aftershock of airy academia
I’d
just spent 4 years being lobotomized by—
tenderness! that’s the whole
message!
your
hands, touching,
your
hands, tender on your lover’s temples,
the
message you deliver to one who screams for help,
that’s
all that’s left.
Remember
remember
when you screamed because nobody could live
in such
degradation?
you
seriously considered walking to the bridge
&
jumping off,
life seemed
so pointless.
you
wanted to kill the bosses
&
were horrified when somebody walked in on second shift
& pumped the place full of bullets.
the dawn
was ugly, the night uglier.
the roses
blooming were a cruel joke.
you
screamed, “I’m a horse, not a man!”
you drank
gin to get away from it,
you
dropped acid to get away from it
&
you opened your eyes to endless heartburn
rubber
steaks, more
&
still having to face Monday!
&
all those people who tried to talk you out of
what you
knew was true every day of your life.
Bridge Street
I
loved them. coming
out of the dark warehouse
its lines
of fluorescent lights strange & bleak
from the
sunlit doorway,
walking
out among those tired, dirty men,
calluses
on their palms,
those
heavy-armed women with their home-made smocks,
the cons
done with their day labor,
back to
the lockup for the night,
the new
faces, how quickly they made friends!
the
mirror & sink with its dirty cake of soap,
the nut
bar machines & coke machines,
the
hi-los—the Allis Chalmers that could take any corner
with
their brodie knobs & great brakes,
the lone
the races
thru the plants to get to the skids first—
big shots
coming thru, wolf calls behind packet skids,
what was that?
the soldering
room with its torches & irons
&
load of country music—how many times
could you
stand to hear Okie from
&
not go absolutely nuts?
the women
with their xeroxed Dicky
Birds jokes
&
knit cock warmers—
“ya wanna
model it?”
the union
meetings, where any dumb joe could jump up
&
speak his piece, the smug
Teamsters
rep, bending his words to get them to sign—
the quiet
ones who just wanted to get on with it,
the young
hotheads, sure it was a screw,
the
bitter remarks & sarcasm.
&
walking to & from work, watching the cops u-turn
on
meeting
for donuts & coffee, bakers rushing in & out
of back
rooms
with hot
the
clatter of pans,
the lines
of tired workers on Friday afternoons
waiting
for bread, hands in pockets fingering their change;
the
stores—Flamingo Bar, its fans exhausting
cigarette
smoke onto the sidewalk,
Rudy’s—pickles,
pork chops & beer, big pretzels & beef jerky,
Ye
Wine Shoppe
where the
old woman admonished us, out of the blue—
“I’m
with you kids all the way! stop the goddamn war!”
the
unclaimed freight store—
plastic doo-dads, odd sized lingerie, plumbing parts,
old
Johnny of Johnny’s Shoe Repair
bent over
his machines, racks & racks of shoes,
the
Twentieth Century Meat Market—best kielbasa in town!
the laundromat, where bums turned the water black
with
blankets fresh from the trainyards.
I
loved coming out of the factory, especially in Spring!
once, in
the Goodyear tire lot, I saw a double rainbow!
the
bushes all in bloom at St. James
&
sweet bums who’d tell tales of trains & hard times
for “a
quarter for coffee”—
glad to
bend somebody’s ear!
the
Intertribal Council House, Indians going in & out,
curious
ancient faces full of youth!
the old
ladies & cripples & fat broken men on the street,
toothless,
stringy hair, always hello! hello!
O
ghosts of that tired, sunlit street, I’m one of you
now.
New Windows
in the grey shadowy basement workroom
the landlord brought me the
windows
&
I heated the old putty with a torch & scraped it out,
nicking
out the push points & pulling the broken glass.
the inspector had
ordered it
& would be back
Monday.
a quiet
moment,
listening
as the old building creaked above:
two on
the stairs
talking
about the grocery bill as they went up;
in one
apartment,
kids
racing around shouting, bouncing a ball,
&
now, directly above me,
a gospel
tune on the record player,
ladies in
the kitchen shouting along with the singer
&
clapping, clapping, clapping their hands!
I laid the new windows in place
&
stretched & rolled the new putty, firmed it up
&
pressed & slid the knife along, a clean line!
&
turned the frame & began again.
At the Croyden
smell of fish frying thru an open door
&
up the stairs
a fat
woman in a floral dress bright orange & red
screams
in the stairway
at anyone
who’ll listen,
young
dude leaning against a doorway nearby
picking
his teeth, spitting big gobs on the floor.
another door
opens:
an old
man, bent but with a bright eye.
seeing
me, a stranger, with my mop bucket & Stones T-shirt,
he
wonders, do I own the building? no?
do I like
music? he used
to play—jazz, supper clubs,
&
he was happily married, too, bless her,
she
passed on. dropped
dead right in the living room,
just the
other side of this door.
he played
everywhere, all these big joints downtown,
an’ he
played
he knew
all the good numbers—
didn’t
play much now, no money for a piano.
his breath,
alcohol, leaning into me as he speaks—
the woman
who’d been screaming passes by now,
shades
over her eyes—
“don’t listen to him, damn fool talk yer
arm off
&
none of it don’t mean shit!”
he looks
at his hands, palms down, fingers spread,
&
looks back up into my eyes
& I see the invisible keys.
Mid-Winter Cleanup
he & the boss argued
how many
rooms & how to do ‘em & how’d they ever get
that much
done;
the rest
of the crew leaned against the walls
& perched on the stairs, watching the falling snow
outside.
as a kid,
he & his brother
walked
the tracks with wagons & picked
the coal
that’d flown from the coal car
when the
tenders were pitching hard;
or they
brought laundry from the “richies”
for their
mother to do
&
pumped the outside well for water to fill the tubs
so she
could wash—
sometimes
the “richies” wouldn’t pay, saying
the
sheets weren’t clean enough.
& when the war came, he enlisted,
went to
a marine
whose buddies had all been tortured to death
ordering
the guards aside so he could
blast 8
Japanese prisoners;
&
he could still see
the freed
Americans whose faces had the twitches
&
the fingers destroyed with bamboo stakes.
finally,
the boss walked out,
&
he followed, shaking his head,
his watery
eyes cast down.
he
stopped, explained the boss’s ideas to the crew,
&
sighed: “a few months more, & I can
forget it all.”
My Father
standing before the calendar pin-up,
those juicy nipples, that tongue
on the lip,
he explains new ways to get the
work done better.
& there, at the mouth of the blast furnace—
his hand stretches out to survey
a black man in blue
furiously checking parts,
blowing off a die, pushing the
next button
to slam the dies together &
pump the molten metal in,
shouts in the roar of fans &
motors.
I grew up watching him from afar;
for years we fought, if
silently.
dumbfounded before my first
struggling poems,
he defended them to my aunt, who
complained
they’d make me no money, &
ruin my life.
Shooting Gallery
by the
door upstairs, whittled maple sapling homemade
spear,
& baton—black tape around an axe handle:
she was
out for nonpayment, had hepatitis besides.
downstairs, a shooting gallery—
chairs in
a circle—
needlecaps littered the floor—
junkies
still came thru the back window every night.
near the dumpster,
neighborhood
kids checked out the pile of furniture—
old beds
& pissed-on mattresses—
as the
cleaning crew brought them out,
old folks
across the street rocking & watching from
their front porch.
Clean Up
months
before:
a child’s
face stared from the window,
expressionless.
dingy
rooms, browned curtains,
gang-fuck
magazines, lottery tickets,
bottles,
butts in cups & saucers, blue music—
at night,
slumped figures in the back room
stare up
in moonlight, puke in the doorway—
the kid,
waking, alone,
only the
TV for company—
a
dream: the house itself, new—
oak &
pine woods cut down
to make
way for the new development,
surveyors
chatting in the silent meadow
as
butterflies worked the flowers—
the smell
of new earth—
work
crews on their breaks before
the
skeletal frame rising above them—
the proud new
owners
who’d
scraped years to get this duplex:
breakfast
in the dining room,
talking
the news—sinking of the Titanic,
the
Battle of Belleau Wood, the armistice—
Papa
drove off in his Ford,
Mama
did dishes & hung out the laundry.
clean up:
trash
bags piled waist-high,
a yellow
river oozed out to the floor drain.
grease,
thick on the kitchen walls,
dripping
out of the stove’s drip pans
formed in
pools on the floor.
inside
the refrigerator
mold an
inch thick covered the walls—
furry
outlines of milk cartons, jars & cans.
he stood
in the hallway,
sunlight
filtering thru dusty air,
swiping
at nothing—
&
picked up brush & bucket—
Blue April
below the
3rd floor fire-blackened brick
&
empty windows, torn curtains hanging,
a young
woman,
rag tied about her hair,
curls falling at her ears,
waves
& calls to slicked-up goodtime Charley
who’s
strutting thru the scraps,
giant ring on his pinky finger,
black & white tu-tones
shining.
he stops,
tilts his hat, gazes above, shakes his head
&
turns, heading thru the garbage cans
to the
door leading to her darkened stairs.
On the
the great flare of a burning tanker
shoots up white-yellow into the
deep night,
the smoke black even against the
sky.
figures of men lean on bumpers,
stand in headlights, gesturing
in the great light ahead;
distant,
police & ambulance race out
of the city,
white lines flying beneath them.
I see it all from afar,
on another road.
my turn-off comes:
unlock the doors, get the lights
on,
make coffee & await the
administrators,
say hello to all the perfumed
ladies
& ambitious young men
racing to make the grade.
on the
news, 9 o’clock:
the driver lived, pulled from
the wreck
moments before the whole tank
blew.
Getting The
Pump Out
the valves’re closed;
the gushing stops.
blue-white light from the
welder’s torch
strokes the well pit:
finished at last, he clambers
out.
sledges hammer the old pipes
loose;
the men hold their backs &
stretch between blows.
the pipe-fitter balances over
the pit,
his legs spread, bending to
hook chains to the cast-iron
block;
the hi-lo forks rise,
the chains go taut—
swinging, the heavy pump appears
above the pit.
the workers stand & watch,
wiping their hands on their
blackened bellies;
foreman behind them
tugs on his cigarette,
his shiny red pants sagging over
his heels.
AP Wire Story: “Janitors at Risk”
for years
I breathed spray paint, toluol, methanol,
xylene & hi-lo fumes under roaring fans
in
the factory,
then coal
dust in aging boiler rooms, pulled
hot
clinkers & breathed the fumes,
inhaled
diatomaceous
earth, muriatic acid & chlorine vapors
6 years at Lincoln Pool, breathed
asbestos
in
boiler rooms,
in
tunnels & mechanical rooms across the city,
inhaled
chlordane, wood dust, germicide fumes,
stone
cleaners,
boric
acid dust, ammonia vapors—almost my whole
adult
life—exposed myself daily to
shit,
piss,
vomit, mucus, hair, congealed
sweat, menstrual blood,
as every janitor
does. today,
meetings to
save the
planet
fill auditoria as janitors wheel
chemicals for the
air conditioning
right past
the door
where
the speakers have worked
themselves into a righteous
frenzy! O sacred soil, I knew you well
when as
a child
I sang in your treetops & dove from cliffs tomeet
the river god face
to face: I toss a handful
over my
shoulder
& plant these seeds to keep this dream safe.
Memorial Stone
a young man kneels on a stoop in the alley
& blows trumpet,
soft sad notes rise into the
breeze;
a block
down, beyond the shadows,
cabs & trucks & old
Chevys roar in a spot of sun.
my hand, against the memorial
stone, again
traces friends dead in war.
I
sit—
&
watch the bag ladies & pigeons passing,
the water’s shine as it rises
from the fountain,
the manic ex-soldier who
goose-steps back & forth.
the faces rise again in my mind:
blond hair cut straight across,
his raised hand & shouted
hello along the river
on a home-made raft;
& the other, all
curls,
his Latin books shoved in a
corner,
V-8 engine pulled apart in his bedroom,
smiling in his grease-marked
underwear.
jostled
now—
“you po-lice?”
he asks, then “hell, no, not widdem clothes on!”
his eyes on my janitor uniform;
reaches into his pocket for his
bottle
& offers me a slug of sweet red wine,
motorcycle cap backwards on his
thinning pate.
we sit together,
saying little,
glad for quiet
company.
Killings to Be
Made in Soybean Futures
oldtimer swigs & shades his eyes,
look,
my tractor’s paid for, but
what a way to end my years
farming—
how many families
already packing up?
how many men out behind their
barns
staring into their own shotgun barrels?
giant dustclouds
roll off
his discs & wheels,
last time
he’ll cultivate these rows,
hopeful
shoots
withered
in less than a month.
distant heatwaves rise,
distort
the hill, the farmhouse,
the line
of trees beyond.
Trucker’s Story
small
towns—
same here
as it is there—
company pulls out
&
men stand on corners, on porches,
waiting,
a
lifetime’s savings gone,
houses
selling dirt cheap—
but not
selling—
best
friends turn on each other over
unloading my truck—
in one
town
they beat
on each other so bad
cops had
to run a man to the hospital,
his mouth
still crying,
can’tcha
hold that load?
I’ll be back in an hour!—
the
others, standing, hands in pockets,
waiting
for the cops to l`eave.
Quick Glance Back
for Bill
Hopewell
quit drivin’ cab 3rd time I was robbed—
it was
never too bad ‘til the riots in ’67—
&
then it got mean as hell.
&
when they busted all the whores
outa their houses—
ladies
used to order a plate of food,
I’d
pay for it & bring it down—
they’d
pay me the difference—
but once
they were on the street, it was
honey I got no
money, how else can I pay you?
these
rich sonsabitches I’d pick up—
they’d
want a girl but
they
didn’t take it too good if you had a memory.
the robbin’, tho, that’s why I quit.
O,
it was great in the old days!
piles of
money! bets on
the tables at Beason’s
after work!
what a
time you could have
when the
town was jumpin’.
The New Foot
the door slammed;
cane
tapping,
tapping,
he works
his way
down
the ramp,
one hand
against
the wall—
men at
the table
look up
from coffee,
fish
stories, tales of
bowling
glory.
he stares
at the door
20
feet beyond them
where
he’ll hang his
coat
& tool pouch,
then
looks down at
his new
leg & foot, his
cane,
& slowly hobbles
across
the room.
heads
turned back
to table
& talk:
he
shuffles
slowly—no
more walker,
nor
pinned pantleg,
nor
therapy, for him.
At the Croyden
smell of
fish frying thru an open door
&
up the stairs
a fat
woman in a floral dress bright orange & red
screams
in the stairway
at anyone
who’ll listen,
young
dude leaning against a doorway nearby
picking
his teeth, spitting big gobs on the floor.
another door opens:
an old man, bent but with a
bright eye.
seeing me, a stranger, with my
mop bucket & Stones T-shirt,
he wonders, do I own the
building? no?
do I like music? he used to
play—jazz, supper clubs,
&
he was happily married, too, bless her,
she
passed on. dropped
dead right in the living room,
just the
other side of this door.
he played
everywhere, all these big joints downtown,
an’ he
played
he knew
all the good numbers—
didn’t
play much now, no money for a piano
his breath,
alcohol, leaning into me as he speaks—
the woman
who’d been screaming passes by now,
shades
over her eyes—
“Don’t
listen to him, damn fool talk yer arm off
&
none of it don’t mean shit!”
he looks
at his hands, palms down, fingers spread,
&
looks back up into my eyes
& I see the invisible keys.
The Invisible Keys
dead, old John, premiere piano player,
found sitting up on his toilet
after
3
days not answering his bell:
yellowing
sheet music, old records,
unpaid
bills
piled on
his dresser;
clock
radio blaring the latest hits,
the
morning news;
government
checks stuffed in the mailbox,
unclaimed;
no relatives,
no claims for his things,
landlord
to arrange his funeral.
spot on
the sax,
he’s on
his knees making that thing
scream
just
above the heads of the dancers
who’re
humping it,
sea of
heads jumping in the dark,
smoke
haze up in the lights &
now it’s John’s turn,
bass
thumping
raw
nerves underground raging river,
he lights into those
high
keys, staccato—
fingers
flying faster & faster,
sweat
dripping off his eyebrows,
crashing
cymbal & snares & high hat
clanging!
&
now that guitar coming in
sweet
& low,
trying to
take it—
even the
bouncers at the door
look in,
the dancers
stop dead
to watch or
collapse
into their seats, exhausted,
take it
babe—
that guitar
out front all alone
burning
away sadness & anger, unpaid bills
&
careless loves,
burning a
bright new fire
to get
them all to that coming dawn,
burning
all desire
away,
leaving them
quiet,
breathing
softly
together
at last.
somewhere
that old tune’s floating up
in a dingy hallway
one bare bulb hanging
& those keys’re
rolling, waves under fast
fingers—
& two floors up
a woman
sobs alone on rumpled sheets
shattered glass
on the
floor, picture on her pillow—
two lovers
in white,
with a red rose—
hearing those
notes
again,
she’ll rise & look out at
the empty street,
streetlights
going off in the
lavender dawn,
&
she’ll remember an embrace, a
tender moment
in a room
like this, & sighing,
wipe her eyes
&
fix her hair, who knows who
might turn up
today,
toes
still tapping to that old song.
the
flower-strewn corpse of Indira Gandhi:
her
eldest son, now prime minister,
calmly
lays the torch at her side.
relatives
pile the wood around her—
seen on TV
in this
waiting room, heard over intercom jabber.
a girl
stands at the glass door, anxious,
looking
out as mechanics strip the nuts from a wheel;
an old
man wonders whether the wait’s too long—
maybe he
should call off his deal
for a new
battery
now.
trash
cans & splattered walls,
fluorescent
yellow lights
in deep
night—
distant
siren, backfire echo—
&
you asleep in your mother’s arms:
I
lean against my mop & dream
where
stars & moon rise & fall.
Pointing It Up
the whole city
spread below, he perches
on his scaffold
pressing mortar
into cracks, turning
his trowel with care:
eyes so intent
on his work, he’s unaware
the wind is rippling
thru his shirt.
Sunday Morning
keys jangling, the janitor
begins his building check:
bum in
the dumpster’s
tossing
trash right & left—
“open this fuckin’ building—
they’s cans in there, I got
toget them cans, I need
the money
now, goddammit!”
a brief,
futile argument:
the
janitor backs off, swearing
he’ll
call the cops. churchgoers
in Sunday
best parade by
arm in
arm & view the scene,
turn up
their noses in disgust,
to which
the bum retorts,
“fuck you, too, you assholes,
fuck
you”—who once was
a babe in
someone’s arms, &
cried for
love, cried for
love,
cried for love.
sirens &
flashing lights stop
traffic where the strikers tried
to stop trucks plowing thru
their human wall
& cops waded into
the jobless lines
collaring shouting men &
women,
tossing them into
the wagons
& slamming the doors:
high
noon
in the shadowless summer,
unseen eyes
peering thru the mirrored
windows
where
others, jobless
for years or scrambling
as burger clerks, errand boys,
part-timers &
sweepers
to pay the rising
rent & fill the
hungry mouths,
succumb to
the scab siren’s song of money.
In The Alley
race your
day away,
son,
the old
man spat,
sucking
on
the butt
he
bummed,
&
you’ll
wake
to find
your-
self
alone.
he raised
his eyes—
the kid
replied,
yah,
old man,
like you
know
anything,
pissing
your life
away
with
talk.
The Job
years
later, he’d disgorge monthly:
searching
swamps & paddies for the dead,
eyes in
treetops for snipers,
he’d
reach thru muck & gassy water
in
tropical heat:
skin slid
from arms like sausage casings,
arms
& legs pulled loose from bloated bellies—
swollen
eyes popped open, white with decay.
(get the dogtags &
drop the
stinking meat into a body bag—
try to
forget anxious parents,
the high
school sweetheart now in college,
her
perfumed letters,
his radio
flyer buckskin fantasies, hip shake watusi
&
all those dreams of panting love—
tally ‘em up).
he couldn’t
explain
to his
girlfriends how even in their
most
intimate moments that death smell
would
come to him—he’d
run
shrieking into the light,
shaking,
his tongue a babble
of dead mens’ names.
even
here, among
the
laughter of friends, he’d need
you—to
hold his shaking hands,
again
& again, trapped in that dream.
Lunch Hour
ancient
of days, the wizened hag’s
bony arms
fling bags & butts,
half-eaten
hot dogs & old papers
from the
stuffed trash basket, clutching
cans for
her sack—
conventioneers, secretaries
fatcats & young stuffed suits
swirling
around her,
lunch
hour—
a jazz
band humps it for all they’re worth,
screaming
notes fly up in
September
heat to
shout the
last days of sexual summer,
the caged screams of cubicle workers.
finally
she’s done
&
slings her sack
onto her
rusted cart, where another bag’s
overflowing
with her old clothes—
regal in silence, she pushes
thru this
festive crowd,
eyes
glazed & yellowed, yet staring
straight ahead.
Alone
the boss has gone.
stop
& look out the window:
a big man has come out on his porch
& stretches
in the morning sun, swinging his arms.
up the ladder
I take chisel & hammer in hand
& knock out the old plaster—
delicious
silence,
little sharp raps—
& now the neighbor’s hanging out his laundry.