Drive the tattooed car up the hill after a night of waiting
on river spirits to speak from cold choppy waves
the unfalling snow in the air wet enough
to need gills yet here
we must be content dry siders
with our sorry make-shift scuba gear
strangling our songs
Category Archives: work
The turn out of McAlpine Lock
Ice clings to the bottom of the paddlewheel.
It is a balmy 32 degrees 2 days after the first arctic blast of winter.
A light show falls on the wharf at almost 8:30 pm,
the quiet interrupted by tug boat traffic northbound
out of the turn
Give us today our daily and don’t forget the napkins
This is a cold fried chicken and tart mushy apple kind of night and autumn is a leaving season.
Keeping the shop door closed keeps the cold out. The shop is a ship of curiosities, a memory palace full of one-liners. (The punch lines left with the people who told the jokes over coffee and the memory of what cigarettes taste like.)
The heater kicks on and I hear it again: that vaguely unintelligible song. The music of metal and heat and squeaky parts. The city is a battle of the bands: there is a song in the interstate overpass rattling as loaded semis storm by at 2 in the morning. Then the fupa-fupa-fup-thump of a tire going flat. The echoes of couples conversations and the lone man in a red hoodie arguing with his demons at 3 am.
We sing, one and all, unaware of the melody. It’s just some tinny tune we heard as a baby. A lullaby or a military march. The memory of a plague whose name is forgotten.
And then? Sunrise.