Voice-over, and: Scrimshaw

Voice-over

I

I live in Homestead with ghosts, says a voice From the blue, the town coming into view Below me on my walk, a voice more overheard Than thought out loud, more audio and earbud. Down to my right the twelve brick chimneys That used to rise from Open Hearth Five Now loom in memento, the Monongahela Beyond them and the Homestead Grays Bridge. The ghosts of the steel mills lapse-dissolved Behind the mall, ghosts on the avenue sidewalks, Chockablock bodies across. Tugboats And barges. The voice a kind of status report, One part of the brain to another, The one off-hand, the other caught off-guard.

Ii

Working turns we called it, one week following Another in the mills: eight-to-four, Four-to-twelve, twelve-to-eight and graveyard, Lunch breaks in the middle of the night. Jet lag as though from time zones. I never got used to it, eating breakfast On my way to bed or getting ready for work, Winter afternoons when the light was already Turning ghostly. Keeping the Sabbath Was an early casualty of the spinning jenny, Clocks that never stopped. Turns like falls, Two out of three, and you lost out On all you’d punched-in from, your portion Of labor under the sun shifting to fit the gears.

Iii

My father ducked into his bar those mornings On the way to the office, the ghost Of his Uncle Andrew leading the way. The men working turns pouring through the gates Or standing in line in bakeries to pick up Their daily bread, lights still burning On the river, lights burning through the downdrafts Of smoke. And so loud you had to shout At the top of your voice if you wanted to be heard Near the furnaces. The ghosts of laundry Hung from lines in the small backyards, In the semaphore strung above the courtyards Of the vanished wards. Flagship tenements. Voices carried upward by the winds.

Iv

Or a small still voice, like the one from within The whirlwind. A kind of remark made in passing, Its half of the conversation, a kind of overhearing. I live in Homestead with ghosts. “A good talking to,” they used to say, meaning You were in for an earful. They used to say The windsocks of smoke streaming from the chimneys Meant that men were working— The sledge of the forge and fire being bellowed— Casting sheds their tabernacles. In the sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread. Voiced, silent, bicameral talk. Below me the derelict roof of an old bowling alley . . . How quickly, in Genesis, it all comes to a halt.

Scrimshaw

for the artist, Gendron Jensen

I

A littoral of a desk, spread with the photographs He’s sent from that rendered country:

The salt-stung skulls and mandibles As pitted as pieces of driftwood,

Ribs like timbers from a salvaged ship, The “great knobbed blocks” of the vertebrae . . .

Mostly, though, I’ve pictured them As the last shapes dust takes on its own.

Ii

In the museum I haunted, growing up, A sperm whale’s lower jawbone stood on end

In the fathoms at the far end of its hall— A keel of sorts, forked like a witching rod,

A tuning fork to set the waters churning. Imagine taking hold of it. The torque.