Every morning I am reminded
Trucks are waiting for me in the dark,
I belong to the woman in my bed,
And a little boy and girl across town. That’s it.
There is fast water that cuts down the center
Of our city, water that can carry us away
If we let it. In the dark it occurs to me
That bending over to lace my boots,
My heart will be closer to heaven.
That crossing the river each sunrise
I will look for river hawks lighting out to hunt.
A response to a poem by Charles Simic I carried around in my wallet for five years.
8/28/10
Diptych- Stake Body
Well before the sun has a chance to erupt across the morning I leave her slender arms, smelling of sleep and pale as ghosts. It is raining and even the street light outside her window is out. I drink my coffee and read in the next room by the light of the kitchen while her two cats circle me. The meditation for the day is on Work as a holy act. I think about my new job and how it might be work in the purest sense of the word. I get on my rain jacket and get out the door.
The first ticket is marked Urgent- called in Twice so we get deep into Church Hill, the worst block up there my driver claims. After three days I’ve started to hate my driver, his Jesus on the radio, his smelly sandwiches. I cuss the fact that the sun is still not yet out when the headlights catch the first tire at the mouth of the alley. I get out into the hard rain and throw him into the back of the Stake body and head on, marching the backside of the long length of the block, the lights of the truck cutting through the hard rain and tall grass around me, illuminating more low black shapes waiting on either side.
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