straight man, and: reference room

Straight man

You know how to listen. I know how to talk. Painted-on expression, wooden tone. The ventriloquist with emphysema glugs a glass of water in the bed behind the curtain I yank for privacy. A ring jams. The medicine show goes on and on. The old soft shoe- who knows what we'll do da do da do. On your knees I thud a joke about God knows what, listen with my comically long stethoscope to the rasp of your breath saw a hole around my feet.

Reference room

Dark granite ored with light. Wide stairs descending to the Children's Section, to a cold fireplace where books are read and memories forged. There's a volume, reports a thin woman with a bun like a second head, on every subject. Later I realize this isn't true. Still later, I realize it is. Men in hooded asbestos suits and dark goggles glance from a forge's orange fountain of sparks. "When the iron is molten," the caption reads, "a man burns out a plug in the furnace called the iron notch." The workers burn a hole in the furnace? Hey kid! How'd you like to work with us? Breathe fire every day? I really ought to get back to my homework. "Rolling mills turn the stream of liquid metal into long, continuous bars." Hey, kid - how'd you like to swing a sledge? Think you could? I flatten my algebra book on the oak. Hey, kid! Got something to do besides read an encyclopedia? Grow up? Make something of yourself? Solve for x, over and over. I'm captured among the ornate lamps and heavy tables in the window of Carnegie Library in Cheyenne, right down to the perfectly straight part in my wet hair. The iron vanes of the radiator bang like someone's inside feeding the flames. One thing I don't understand. Or maybe I've forgotten. How is it possible to work on something more powerful than your tools?