The Deep and Heavy Work of Man
You never tried poems, Dad, you just drove truck
You took some in, I’m sure--your claw strong hands
Folded in the congregation, thumbs
hammered flat
And stubborn. What would they have written had you
Spilled more ink than wine?
About rubber, asphalt,
engines, lightning reckless
On the highway? Morning stars and TV snowstorms?
How you shifted your
International with the grip of gods
Kissing the divine spans of Los
Angeles, steering planets
Into their cosmetic lanes?
Still, I thank you for your
mal-fitting, dirty jeans, Dad
Your Liberace photo, “To my
friend, Tom…” Your pencil
Stub with which you died, the
board with your raw words
As your heart was throbbing out
before you sprawled
Across the hood of your car
Driving it home to sell for 27
hundred dollars
Through the windshield: You and your fingers
Through the windshield: You and your fingers
All I could wonder was what you'd have written
With your stubby pencil had you
been given a wand
Of books and sense
Write on, Dad, about the way
you held the wheel tight
What weighed you down,
hauling your loads to bury far
How your thick hands gripped
steel and wood and stone
In the sprawl of your austere life,
waking early for the
Deep and heavy work of man
