Jobs & Working
A Position at the University
Sweeping the States
they move in swift on the Swift
Plants in six states & sift
through the faces to separate
the dark from the light
like meat & seat them in
the back of vans packed tight
like the product they pack
& who's to pick up the slack
the black & white can't cut it
so the beef stacks sell single
to feed the pack the flock
who block passages & clog
Lives of the Watchmakers
Surely there are teeth so small.
I have listened for their turning,
this frail swell and fall
like old blood yearning
upwards through the skin of days.
Slowly, I am learning
their count, though numbers fray
in me, and the loaded instants
graft, coming always
Four Sandwiches
JC was called the Rack
at the work farm,
aluminum milk pails
dangling from his hands.
Once a sudden fist
crushed the cartilage of nose
across his face,
but JC only grinned,
and the man with the fist
stumbled away.
Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper
At sixteen, I worked after high school hours
at a printing plant
that manufactured legal pads:
Yellow paper
stacked seven feet high
and leaning
as I slipped cardboard
between the pages,
then brushed red glue
up and down the stack.
No gloves: fingertips required
for the perfection of paper,
smoothing the exact rectangle.
Sluggish by 9 PM, the hands
would slide along suddenly sharp paper,
and gather slits thinner than the crevices
of the skin, hidden.
Then the glue would sting,
The Niche
The niche narrows
Hones one thin
Until his bones
Disclose him
Congregations
One fisherman alongside the other
one seagull alongside the other
seagulls over the fishermen.
The Mill-Race
Four-fifty. The palings of Trinity Church
Burying Ground, a few inches above the earth,
are sunk in green light. The low stones
like pale books knocked sideways. The bus so close to the curb
that brush-drops of ebony paint stand out wetly, the sunlight
seethes with vibrations, the sidewalks
on Whitehall shudder with subterranean tremors. Overhead, faint flickers
In Praise of My Bed
At last I can be with you!
The grinding hours
since I left your side!
The labor of being fully human,
working my opposable thumb,
talking, and walking upright.
Now I have unclasped
unzipped, stepped out of.
Husked, soft, a be-er only,
I do nothing, but point
my bare feet into your
clean smoothness
feel your quiet strength
the whole length of my body.
I close my eyes, hear myself
moan, so grateful to be held this way.