| Peter Tomassi USA
The Trade His papier-mâché legs Stand on footings dripping mortar, Like pigeon droppings Immortalized in concrete. His mornings begin On simple monuments. To the footing I bring new blocks The shape of cigar butts stepped on. He lectures on water and the trade: My back for forearms like giant squash, My hands for mitts that catch cut stone. It's a planter we are replacing. Rows of gray, dark gray, gray, Mortar, block, mortar, block, mortar, Knocking them to plumb. It is the rows we are building only, Making clean flush tract Cured in morning sweat As if he would own it, As if sweating were owning. I watch – yawning – his cement-gray hands Growing hard – Fingers squeeze purple from the brick tongs, Streak in the plumb chalk's yellow. I see me in the cementy soup: Arms sinewless, Stout, smooth gourds, waiting to hatch Rivulets of olive muscle, Mounds of weedy Italian landscape, Molded concrete curves Speckled with black cancers. He leaves a scored brick, Grabbing the cup as he coughs. He has caught me again. Staring down his cup of coffee, Working. WRITER You're putting on airs again: Piss, exhaust, month-old sweat, Sweeter somehow than the suit and briefcase That pressed me on the sidewalk. They pull me headlong toward your skin: Craters that have swallowed whole histories, Inhaled truckloads of Thunderbird. A Death Valley takes the first soaking, You're curled in vitro, Dried up there, Sandblasted, Legs hammered into fender chrome Waffling in the junkyard heat. A body is reincarnated from the chimney sweep Squatting there day after day, Ancient in its black, Scribbling on a rolled up newspaper, Pen curled in hand, Coveting secrets of night downtown. If I look closely I can see us, dear friend Writing the same grotesque chronicles: You made some rock paintings once. And your journals - They did not find the quill and parchment Fossilized deep in a subway arctic, Nor did they Your typewriter, Long since reclaimed by the steelmongers. All that was left Was this foundering word processor, A slick beige printer, Its insides vomiting Scraps of old newsprint. FATHERS AT ECHO LAKE Wind sledded in wet gloves Molded to the rails Of Flexible Flyers, A whir against spiky kid shouts, Air ripping feather-packed nylon, The hushed worry of fathers Bogged down in corduroy. Sharp trails in their collared faces Wrapped up in plaid scarves that flapped Pennants hurrying the onslaught. Unruly little bulls, Children take over from the herders, Fists and shouts riding The delirium of fathers' crises, Of briefcases that empty, fill, empty. The aging men reach for firmness In slick ice footings Beneath powdery soft Landings of snow fallen thick. A few fat drops like bricks. The call of engines Bark in the parking lot, And paneled wagons glide away, Down toward safety, The wet ice. EARLY DECEMBER My uncle had just returned with the tree Frozen as cold as the ground. The Christmas fish was left out thawing. Our dog licked olive oil from the floor. "Snow's comin', I hear." He tugged off his jacket. It took about five snow driveways Before December started paying for itself, And even then it fell a luke choice Between the weatherman's glow And broken relatives Spinning like Yuletide soundtracks On the family room rug. I was thinking How early we got our trees, Where you would get one Even if you didn't live in Jersey, The way the needles stabbed you When dragging it to the street The day after New Year's. How long the neighbors would Leave out their plastic Santas. In the yard we found the snowman's garb, Listening for the sound Of his first winter coat. BUILDERS IN TOMS RIVER The builders stood at sunset Knotted beams to the skinless house, Waiting in their wallboard film For a pile of framing nails to go. They wore the workboots of the continent, Stained by turpentine, smelling like basements, A six-pack of Bud in August More to them than a thousand ice ages. These were architecture's bottlenecks Scaffolded by shingles and attic ducts, Building their houses as if to store Grout bags, power tools, the site's cool breath, As if the only domestic voices Would be echoes of misfired nails, Drops of stale coffee A mutter about union dues. Light bottomed. The builders stood in a circle Aiming their hammers like fingers To blame the rooftops For living beyond their age.
© All Copyright, 2000,
Peter Tomassi. |
