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Prairie Schooner 78.4 (2004) 151-154



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Three Poems

Salvation

The woman w/ maggots in her legs
dozes in an over-stuffed chair.
Flies orbit her head, blacken the walls,
lay their eggs in the moist-warm holes in her body.

She whispers to the pipers* who call her Granny,
bring her potato chips or warm ginger ale then
curl into the room's dark corners.
Their match flames reflect in her dull eyes.
Sulfur mixes with the smell of garbage.

The woman w/ maggots in her legs
never changes her clothes.
Her socks writhe against her ankles.
Her shoes appear to be full of rice.

She dreams of sheets boiled white,
sunshine through clear window panes.
The tickling in her body is the touch of God,
the buzzing, the wings of angels. [End Page 151]



Pete's Launderette

Back in 1968, customers would leave bags of dirty clothes in front of the door.
Fat bundles with notes pinned to them like children traveling alone.
Their penciled instructions read no bleach, cold water, no dry-
Or they took the time to deliver in-person their intimates into his black hands.

Pete would growl "pickupordelivery," "dropitonthascale,"
cigar clenched between pocked teeth. Patrons leaned in trying to understand his voice
washed out by the roar of dryers, droning washers
and the Blasting Blues Sounds of "W-I-L-D BOSTONNNNN!"

Into the belly-mouth of an empty washer, he pushed twice as much as it should hold.
Behind the glass porthole boiled a chowder, milky with suds and swirling colors.
Jim, the lanky boy who worked for him pulled steaming clothes from huge dryers.
The gas-fueled behemoths licked flames into the air, made it always hot as August.

They would load the VW bus, drive all over the city. Pete carried heavy bundles
through the projects, tenements and apartment buildings, up and down stairs,
through the dark odor of hallway piss, the hope of cakes baking.
His back pocket bulging with cash.
His hook knife clipped to his belt. Every opened door a gamble. [End Page 152]

When Roxbury exploded in riots, Pete stayed in his laundry all
night.
Behind the window-wall of glass, under the buzzing
fluorescents,
he sat on a metal folding chair, legs crossed. He wore a black
leather glove
to be raised in the "Power Salute." On his lap, in full view, was
his pistol.

None of his windows were broken.



Sometimes I See My Father

I see my father on the street corner leaning,
Toothpick jammed between a stranger's tobacco-stained teeth.

Like those street-corner Santas, who look authentic, until you get close
I know not to wave or call out. He's been dead since '99

I'll catch him, out the corner of my eye driving away in an '86 Town Car
The back of his head wearing a porkpie hat. It's distracting.

They're random sightings, not like he's haunting me.
Wearing some other man's gold-rimmed glasses-

as he turns down the next supermarket aisle.
Each time I see him I feel a rip in the wall of my heart.

Maybe if I could cry he would take it as a sign
That I know he is dead and get on with things. [End Page 153]

I'd grab his hand, say "Look - Dad,
Stop wearing those too big false teeth,

The hazel contact lenses, that mud cloth
kufi over I don't know who's bald head."

But then we never really had it like that.

To run up and touch him? Tell him what to do?
No. He's not my real blood father anyway.

Ma told me, at his funeral, as we stood looking down into the casket.
I could tell by the big fake gold ring, that those were not his hands.

In the lobby at my job, he brushes past me into a crowded elevator.
The doors close. My heart is dangerously close to tearing.

I press against the cool marble wall,
take slow measured breaths. Wait.

Toni...

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