I put on my thigh-highs and
step into the gulch.
The slicked rocks strewn
with exploded carp
and plastic garbage
give way gradually to
the sulfurous waters where
they say the boy drowned.
My arms in
to the shoulder
I turn my face up to a sky
so bright its blue
oozes around the outline of
a crooked pine. Nineteen
and a half and high, he’d
been a toiler in the pit one
summer and this was
unemployed. I know
a little about work so my
sympathy is right where
you’d expect it to lie. If his gut
didn’t split he’d have
floated to the surface but
his face is calm enough that
when they get him drained
if they still want to
they’ll open the casket at
the chapel. I never had beef
with ugliness, can hardly
get drunk, don’t go in
much for Jesus but
I know He said “I’ll make
you fishers of men” and a
couple other things that
in my case proved true. For godsake
if you want to get from
here to happiness you go straight
through. You dig like
I tell my kids all the way to
China. Showering at the station
though I’m trying to picture
it right and seems like you’d
come up somewhere in
the ocean or on some
Pacific island, maybe
Indonesia.