Poetry

After the Rapture

After the rapture, the Buddha
Taught men how to sew
Great bolts of silk
On the cusp of becoming wings.

Mothers were pleased
And Fathers tossed quarters
Towards fedoras in hopes
That the kind lunch ladies would
Somehow be replaced.

Mohicans rode about the country
In 1957 Ford Big Job dump trucks,
Collecting FALLING ROCK signs
Off interstates and new-found highways.

No plans were made.
How does one say,
“This old,
That long,
Before, or after?”

Forever just bells.
Forever just keys.
Forever just folk.

 

Honest Labor

In retrospect,
We should have known we could never really fly,
But ambition was easily confused with
Weightlessness.
What saved us all
Were tethers of hemp
And bright heavy steel.

A gross of roofing nails,
galvanized against the running
felt and shot from Bostich Tommy guns
held cut shingle to flashing.
Never lean.
Keep your heart between and directly
above your feet.

 

The gravity of sidewalks,
Expansion joints cutting ribbon to square,
Dazzle and tug.
Don’t let them.
Never look down.

In motion at the ridge,
Opposing perfect angles and angels
and wagers made with
pockets flush with eight and ten-penny steel.
Required tools:
Utility knife
Chalk line
Roofing ax
25-foot tape measure
Estwing 22 oz. milled face framing hammer

Three square per man per hour
Comes to 24 square each day.
Snap the chalk-line and
Eye up the weeps
Cipher as the wind lifts blue dust to the clouds.

Tie up the pump-jacks,
We’ve need again on Monday.
Hop from the truck bed
Up three stories, fighting winds
With eight-foot sheets of 5/8^th plywood
A solid sail.

Pay comes on Friday
And on this day,
we know that every joint is sound,
Every joist is pure
and
all of us are plumb