Dawn on the levee, an old painter & I
        Watched the sky change & talked.
        Ohio, god forgive her, is where my
        Father's father's from: wade in tanks of pork
        And corn, thank chemistry to come.
        There's no heaven like heaving the hay in.
        Never been, said he. I was just sent to
        Minneapolis on business, barge
        Of industrial molasses, cold, falls,
        Mills, didn't stay, the next day St. Paul, saw
        Mounds, it took weeks: Davenport, Black Hawks, Bix,
        Then the long Missouri's cottonwood mix.
        I prayed to St. Louis, inexhaustible
        German Catholics, electricity & beer,
        Flushing delta wider from Cairo, your
        Clear blue Ohio browns: Memphis, Yazoo,
        The past in ruins yet to be recast.
        Now New Orleans, a lack of clocks & slacks
        Of purple cloth, the will o'th'wisp. I see
        Wicks of blue flame beading on the tanker
        Chios Faith, low in the water last night, late, now
        Emptied buoyant bare, light in air. The crew
        Has leave on shore as drydock work ensues,
        Clanging of iron loud as the lock of
        A dam, piercing repair. I don't know
        Why I let a day go down uninformed
        Of the flaws in the hull, don't hallow the craft
        To keep it from mothballs: the scorched angle
        Of the iris dawning now, I feel
        As after a speech, exhilaration's
        Rush. But spectres of elegy
        Have always glared here, off
        Of these spills, the oily waterslicks
        And wires rising out of yesterday's work,
        Dawn on you spotting sunny lassitude's
        Wincing eyesores.

Copyright © Mac Oliver, 2001.  All Rights Reserved.