sw00342fdl-entry4of9

Fond du Lac



Four
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                 "Excuse, me, ma'am."  A blur
of daisies dangling a shoe box, she sways,
rubs past.  I screw my neck to compass her,
then loosen it.  A knotted backbone gobbing
tobacco onto the curb/ gags me.
I shop the neat display of oxfords, boots
and varia in Fondy's Big Shoe Store.
Diamond, spade, heart, club: brightly placed
in a white parallelogram of leather
whose length dimension cuts across the ankle
of a black Cuban style shoe.  ["Who is set?"
"Gambler?"  "Yes."  "Step in: I'm leaving.  Your bluffs
are just as good as mine."  "Italian style?"
"No!  What do you think we're playing?  This game's
poker!  Now place your bet or get on out."
"Yah man, gotta have wild feet for this one.
Gotta know each man's bare blood, light and dark.
Experience that, and this land of other rooms
is yours.  Ain't no sour daydreams here."]  That shining,
off-set laced, pointed oxford makes me wince;
want wrangling corpuscles, guys wise and sluffy
to be my dangerous friends, horns in shoes.
["Raise four."]  Fingertips press my collarbone.
In the pane below my neck a silver buckle,
a pin-stripped shirt--that face behind my face--
"Ray!  How you been?!"  Twisting to shake his hand,
my lungs relax.  "Well, what's the matter, Art,
am I a ghost or something?"  "No, you just
surprised me."  "What you looking at?  Those things
are for kids!  You couldn't be wanting them!?"
"Why not, I'm still teen-agey enough."  "You what?!"
"No, really!  If I had the money--."  "Well, here,
take some of mine.  Sure'd hate to see you/ melt
through this glass."  "Don't worry."  "You think I am!
It's your kick, Art.  Don't lose your nose."  Nice guy.


Five
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Torn bags; the sidewalk again, with its shells,
weeds, memories pinched, tinted red, or rolling
perhaps, or else / cracks in the stone, the--hornet
of my brain.  Meters.  What is it with faces,
licorice to buttermilk; rainbows slung
around bodies of air?  Places to park,
to tease a fender.  Lampposts.  Banners.  Cans
to/ keep our city.  Hydrants.  Boxed-in phones.
Meeters.  What is it about blood that swirls,
squeezes/ industrial legs/arms, crowds a mouth,
a thousand mouths; whistles that swing, explode,
to blind an eye?  Today is Friday.  Here
doors/ will beat till nine: Buehler's, Sears, Ford's--. 
I think I'll get a little bag of logs
to chew on.  No, no, not tobacco, candy.
(I would have to phrase it that way.)  Let's see.
"Candy is dandy" of course, but a good liquor
tilting the arches would be a real sweet
limbo/ to warm a Friday night.  But then,
vagrant sea, ripples, no.  Let others think
another naked son's no special thing,
raise their mugs; chug their white wetnesses into
their earths, rich, poor.  You know, I like her smile.
"A quater pound of these log cabins, please."
"Anything else?"  "No."  "That's twenty-one cents."
"I have the penny."  "Thank you."  Magazines.
McCall's.  Here's a Sports Illustrated!  Na.
Why should I piddle around messing up 
mags I won't buy anyhow.  That looks--Thesz!
The old man's quite a tendril.  I wonder.  No!
"So long, Duffy."  Ought to applaud myself
for that one.  Bet I usually spend ten
full minutes here, at least, listing at pipes,
paperbacks, whatnot.  Wait!  Orange flames?  Negro.
"Arson and street war--most destructive riot
in U. S. history   11 pages
in color"  City of the angels.  Life.
Through weeds between two tires: a T-shirt stretched
on a dark brown body--capable and young,
a pair of black pants, and eyes straight ahead
that see and do not see, walk.  Behind him
the world burns, splits and splits.  The saucer men
are coming.  And I eat toothaches for kicks.
Things couldn't be better.







 Fond du Lac: page 5
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Brian A. J. Salchert