I told my brothers I heard
You & mother making love,
Your low moans like blues
Bringing them into the world.
I didnât know if you were laughing
Or crying. I held each one down
& whispered your song in their ears.
Sometimes I think theyâre still jealous
Of our closeness, having forgotten
We had to square-off & face each other,
My fists balled & cocked by haymakers.
That spring I lifted as many crossties
As you. They canât believe I can
Remember when you had a boyâs voice.
*
You were a quiet man
Whoâd laugh like a hyena
On a hill, with your head
Thrown back, gazing up at the sky.
But most times you just worked
Hard, rooted in the dayâs anger
Till youâd explode. We always
Walked circles around
You, wider each year,
Hungering for stories
To save us from ourselves.
Like a wife who isnât touched,
We had to do something bad
Before youâd look into our eyes.
*
We spent the night before Easter
Coloring eggs & piling them into pyramids
In two crystal punch bowls.
Our suits, ties, white shirts, shoes,
All lined up for the next day.
We had memorized our passages
From the bible, about the tomb
& the angel rolling back the stone.
You were up before daybreak,
In the sagebush, out among goldenrod
& mustard weed, hiding the eggs
In gopher holes & underneath roots.
Mother always argued with you,
Wondering why you made everything so hard.
*
We stood on a wooden platform
Facing each other with sledgehammers,
A copper-tipped sieve sunken into the ground
Like a spear, as we threaded on five foot
Of galvanized pipe for the pump.
As if tuned to some internal drum,
We hammered the block of oak
Placed on top of the pipe.
It began inching downward
As we traded blowsâone for you,
One for me. After a half hour
We threaded on another five foot. The sweat
Gleamed on our shirtless bodies, father
& son tied to each other til we hit water.
*
Goddamn you. Goddamn you.
If you hit her again, Iâll sail through
That house like a dustdevil.
Everyone & everything here
Is turning against you,
Thatâs why I had to tie the dog
To a tree before you could chastise us.
He darted like lightning through the screen door.
I know youâll try to kill me
When it happens. You know
Iâm your son & itâs bound to happen.
Sometimes I close my eyes till I am
On a sea of falling dogwood blossoms,
But someday this wonât work.
*
I confess. I am the ringleader
Who sneaked planks out of the toolshed,
Sawed & hammered together the wagon.
But I wasnât fool enough to believe
That you wouldâve loved our work.
So, my brothers & I dug a grave
In the corner of the field for our wagon
That ran smooth as a Nat King Cole
Love ballad. Weâd pull it around
The edge of our world & rebury it
Before the 5 oâclock mill whistle blew.
I bet itâs still there, the wood gray
& light as the ribs of my dog Red
After somebody gunned him down one night.
*
You banged a crooked nail
Into a pine slab,
Wanting me to believe
I shouldnât have been born
With hands & feet
If I didnât do
Your kind of work.
You hated my books.
Sometimes at dusk,
I faced you like that
Childhood friend you trained
Against, the horizon crimson
As the eyes of a fighting cock.
*
I never asked how you
Passed the driverâs test,
Since you could only write
& read your name. But hell,
You were good with numbers;
Always counting your loot.
The Chevy truck swerved
Along back roads night & day.
I watched you use wire
& sunlight to train
The strongest limbs,
How your tongue never obeyed
The foreman, how the truck motor
Was stunted, frozen at sixty.
*
You wanted to fight
When I told you that a woman
Can get rid of a man
With a flake of lye
In his bread each day.
When you told her what I said
I bet the two of you made love
Til the thought flew out of your head.
Now, when you stand wax-faced
At the door, your eyes begging
Questions as you mouth wordless
Songs like a red-belly perch,
Assaying the scene for what it is,
I doubt if love can part my lips.
*
Sometimes you could be
That man on a red bicycle,
With me on the handlebars
Just rolling along a country road
One the edge of July, honeysuckle
Lit with mosquito hawks.
We rode from under the shady
Overhang, back into sunlight.
That day bounced off car hoods
As the heat & stinking exhaust
Brushed against us like a dragonâs
Roar, nudging the bike with a tremor,
But you steered us through the flowering
Dogwood like a thread of blood.
*
You leaned on a yard rake
As dry leaves & grass smolder
In a ditch in mid March,
Two weeks before you sixty-first
Birthday. You say I look happy,
I must be in love. It is 1986,
Five months before your death.
You toss a stone at the two dogs
Hooked together in a corner of the yard.
You smile, look into my eyes
& say you want me to write you a poem.
I stammer for words. You
Toss another stone at the dogs
& resume raking the leafless grass.
*
I never said thanks for Butch,
The wooden dog you pulled by a string.
It was ugly as a baldheaded doll.
Patched with wire & carpenterâs glue, something
I didnât believe you had ever loved.
I am sorry for breaking it in half.
I never meant to make you go
Stand under the falling snowflakes
With your head bowed on Christmas
Day. I couldnât look at Butch
& see that your grandmother Julia,
The old slave woman who beat you
As if thatâs all she knew, had put love
Into it when she craved the dog from oak.
*
I am unlike Kikuji
In Kawabataâs Thousand Cranes,
Since I sought out one of your lovers
Before you were dead.
Though years had passed
& you were with someone else,
She thought I reminded her
Of a man sheâs once known.
She pocketed the three dollars.
A big red lampshade bloodied
The room, as if held by a mad
Diogenes. Yes, she cried out,
But she didnât sing your name
When I planted myself in her.
*
You spoke with your eyes
Last time I saw you, cramped
Between a new wife & the wall. You couldnât
Recognize funeral dirt stamped down
With dancesteps. Your name & features half
X-ed out. I could see your sex,
Your shame, a gold-toothed pout,
As you made plans for the next house youâd build,
Determined to prove me wrong. I never knew
We looked so much like each other. Before
I could say I loved you, you began talking money,
Teasing your will with a cure in Mexico.
You were skinny, bony, but strong enough to try
Swaggering through that celestial door.