GMH

Old Hollor Head

Lose the cap and shed that letter jacket,

finger the horse head Teamsters patch and

Automobile Shippers insignia stitched

over a Judas heart but leave the heavy

duty pair of Red Wings down on the mud

landing where brogans pass the night. 

Shorn of the Black Watch wool plaid

Pendleton shirt and Roebuck duck

work pants, skinned free of white

V neck tee shirt and briefs, flex those

massive arms before shaking them

off and rolling them up in oil cloth. 

Step out of a looming torso, first  

one foot, then the other, small planet

of your belly sagging on a peg and unbolt

the long levered legs destined to hobble

your twilight years.  Arch an eyebrow

in the mirror and animate the shadow

cast by a Rushmore nose, then bleed

the valve and deflate your dime store mask.

I’ll cradle you in the palm of my hand, then

tuck you into your matchbox bed, maybe whisper  

a high lonesome song to ease you to sleep, heartless

morning bearing down on your dreamless night.  

short friction

Seven Foot Sickle Bar Mower

Lifeless on an idle patch of Wear farm, swallowed

by time marked in jimson and honey vine milkweed

budging, a thing of the past to the eyes of a city boy, worse

a northerner, shoeless and shirtless, evenly tanned but

for pale omegas of a low tide flat top wreathing my ears

white shading to blue at the temples, prayerful snakes

slept late, coiled around clutches of my worst nightmare. 

Oil can like the oil can that tormented the Tin Man

in hand, brandished jail break file in the other, grandpa circled

the scorpion, striking at the lethal tail, silvering edges

of serrated eye teeth, eyes shadowed by the brim of the pith

helmet he wore back in his C.C.C. days, liquoring up

bushings gone dry in the heat while I watched from the open

palm of the Ford NAA Jubilee tractor seat, bearing

witness to the honing of blades destined to work

at cross purposes against the high grass bearding

the branch, touching but not touching, my father’s face

swimming naked in the quarry of grandpa in profile 

angled low above the linkage mechanism, steel working

against steel, shadow working against light, my hand rolling

fine red clay dust into snakes against my smooth cheek.  

Shipping News

Algoma Guardian

Down bound for Toledo she’s riding low

with grain, slipping through the fine blue

capillary that splits the difference

between Belle Isle and Windsor

Canada keeping a low profile to our south

forever confounding us. 

N A I D R A U G   A M O G L A

the letters emerge one after another

from behind some trees in the middle

distance, tidy houses of our northern neighbors

gobbled up like so many pills, hull bleeding

rust, a witness to her silent progress

off my bike on my phone listening

to the nurse give the latest maritime news

of your steady down bound passage.