Work, revised

View From An Arlington Balcony

A rumpled horizon sets to work

as the sun goes down dividing my view

shouldering the rectangle balanced 

lightly on the Chesapeake, a slice

of seaboard peeled back from fretting skies

Reagan International resonating

under finger plucked flight paths, tuned taut.

Running headlong, head down, elbow

on this leg cradling all those marbled

targets, flowing relieved into the bay.

Capital dome a pointy dunce cap

radiating monkey shines, Washington

Monument on the mend, bolted into

a halo brace, Macallen’s on ice

beading on the rail line up perfectly

with only a slight shift of my chair while

tree top choppers worry all bejesus

out of a blameless Potomac, whistling

softly as it hurries past it’s southern

shore, a dark bruise in our constellation. 

         

 

         

We all use plumbing

Breaking News

Waiting at the counter for a set screw

I couldn’t help but overhear the guy

next to me buying a pair of threaded

PVC cleanout caps admit he was

that guy, the local television

personality Whozits from News

At Six or maybe Eleven, BREAKING

NEWS! by the looks of him, not the mundane  

kind, you know, a Shelby Township woman’s

lonely crusade to put angels on the

ballot, the Wixom man who claims drones

spy on his tree blind north of Rose City. 

Winded cameraman on his heel, framed

but just barely, bullying his way

into a non-descript Keego Harbor

strip mall pain clinic, man in a lab coat

hiding behind a manila file

folder, his Kitty Hawk comb over

lifting in flight above endless dunes

of no comment no comment no comment.

On our way out I held the door, clutching

my set screw in the other hand.  He

cradled his cleanout caps and fumbled

with his keys then asked me if I knew

where he’d parked his truck.  In hindsight a

rhetorical question, but I sped

away, cap brim pulled down over my eyes

silently mouthing those two familiar

words that precede the weather report. 

So many books

Reading List

Later on, after the dishwasher is filled,

dog walked, mail posted, magazines sorted,

bed/some semblance of sense/a few calls made:

doctor, chimney guy, Blue Cross Blue Shield

I’ll free up a spare moment to add

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt to the list

of books read I’ve kept these past few years

a satisfying snap for every entry

like biting down on a marrow bone like

breaking a seized nut with an offset wrench.

I will resist the urge to record my

college textbooks, titles long forgotten

save for orphaned words such as Issues and

Contemporary.  I won’t include those

T.V. Guides with their Byzantine layout

and Lilliput font or the stack of Hardy

adventures wolfed down like salty snacks. 

Christ the Readers Digests’ alone would

require their own special section,

back issues from 1961

moldering swollen during those sultry

Tennessee summers, a sage piece by

Art Linkletter or Laughter Is The Best

Medicine to while away the still

afternoon’s, relieved only by the bleat

of the front porch swing and the X-ray buzz

of cicadas. 

Maybe the laundry and the fallen leaves

won’t mind if I take five minutes to add

Franklin E. Meyer’s Me and Caleb and

The Borrowers, by Mary Norton

reminding me, how could I forget? of

E.B. White, Mark Twain and Marvel Comics  

not to mention countless cereal

boxes, album jackets and the liner

notes concealed within.  But reading the dogs

face, a forlorn sphinx haunting an empty

bowl, I think I’d best add her name first

hoping to avoid a bloody awful

savaging when she writes her memoirs.