Their Work, and: The Peaceable Kingdom

14 THE MINNESOTA REVIEW JACK ANDERSON THEIR WORK There in the train going north along the Hudson (the trees all golden in the fall outside) were these two men with their briefcases open and their reports and tabulations strewn across the seat, shouting out figures, roaring their way from item to item: adding them (whooping, nearly gobbling them) up, busy blathering and hollering as they went about their work and damned happy getting the work they did done. 15 ANDERSON THE PEACEABLE KINGDOM This one know the judgment is at hand This one beats his brains out to unify his opposites This one sits in meditation This one shaves his head and begs This one wears a special holy garment This one prides himself on his subtle dialectic This one's favorite words are lumpen and crypto This one smartly salutes the flag This one found Jesus This one lost him This one burns crosses This one strips altars This one looks for subversion in high places This one rages at contraceptives This one blanches at the sight of meat This one refuses blood transfusions This one drives those other ones out of town This one is orthodox, this one deviates, this one forms a splinter group This one heals friends and hexes enemies This one consults his horoscope and gets reborn under another sign And they all shall lie down together Kicking and screaming, biting and scratching, cussing and fucking And they all shall rise up together at last Pure as the dawn and with the dawn's amnesia In the new day of Science ...