View of Toledo
Rent from DeepDyve- View of Toledo
after El Greco
My eyes the two burnt holes in the blanket,They’d joke, having waked me
When it was time to go, leaving my aunt’sFor the drive back home,
Past the shadowy hulks of factories,The trowel-shaped city that rose into the night.
Beacons on the skyscrapers hovered,The river’s black mirror jeweled with their lights.
I’d watch for the blast furnaces at J<owering above the cloud-cover smoke,
For slag to spill like a meteor showerDown its dark invisible hills.
Watch as the exotic crosses loomed into viewOn top of the Byzantine church.
The sign for Homestead floated overhead,And then a sky as wide as the river valley
Where we crossed over waterAnd passed between the rooftops of U.S. Steel— [End Page 79]
The casting sheds I would enter in turn,Nights like fiery machinery,
Working in the darkness in a world of flame,Ladles the Dippers above me. [End Page 80]
Robert Gibb’s books include The Origins of Evening, which was a National Poetry Series winner. Among his other awards are two National Endowment for the Arts (nea) Fellowships and a Pushcart Prize. His most recent books are Sheet Music (Autumn House P) and The Empty Loom (U of Arkansas P).
