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Fond du Lac



Six
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                           Wallace S.,
among the rushes, Moses me a bit.
Do not let this desert parch.  Pray for manna,
rain; oasis me.  Strengthen the veins
of Fond du Lac, Riplean ghost (preserved
by a chance operation--at the first;
a brilliant and eccentric K.--now),
at its high, budding point.  By 1960
this town was to die, believe it or not;
and would have, too, had it not lost some fat
before that predicted death date.  Yet even
then we needed our stubborn Merc man,
Kiekhaefer, to force our sapling council
into bud, to get it to/ spread our roots--
a task not all that easy.  But the roots spread,
and the tight buds.  Stevens, go.  I conjure
you strangely, but want myself.


Seven
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                                              Hotel,
restaurant, furniture store, bar: the hub
of my chrysanthemum, isle of--Sargasso,
Sargasso.  Fond du Lac, however sight
would have you: here, where comfort and drink, food
and shelter ridge their shades, odors, I could stand
for hours watching Division and Main crossed,
holding your sepals, your quarters together;
keeping your quarters, your sepals distinct.
Notheast: Maple, Taft, the Lighthouse, Marquette
and Scott, and Winnebago Drive; the staid,
persistent wealth of artesian wells;
ledges, lagoons, Paul Bunyan's lake--puddle
of/ stinky waters, flash storms; Roosevelt Park:
whatever there men may ponder from under
your burnt-out roof, Retlaw Hotel.  Dim bar,
Carry to me, behind your cracking door
a woman, man, might sip and chat the whole
Northwest: our Giddings & Lewis; rail yards,
the Supple Marsh--where ice was once chunked out,
and Seymour, Johnson, Hickory; the halls,
motels, and lake shore homes; the pine, the deer.
In your soft chairs, Kramer's: Mercury Motors
and Madison and Military Road;
Grove, Western, Pioneer: the whole Southwest
a plush man could ease to mind.  Restaurant,
birth-and-death place for the vaired Southeast,
from your delicious booths a man could raid:
Vine, Highway Forty-One; the private course,
the cemetaries; Eden.  What other cross
could one so dream this town from, learn through its
fragile queens and pastel crimes, curse its stench,
exalt its soil, feel how/ the near waves flower.


Eight
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So, Fond du Lac, your center spins a world
in the half-light of this knifed hour: let be:
your ocean's filled with aphids, paradox.
A drop of salt arching from some whitecap
burns to a crystal, dives, dissolves.  A drop
of salt: a small boy spurting from group
to group.  Weaving a double crossing, I
approach the Retlaw, lean between two bikes
heading south, and drift to the right.  Inside,
my steps are softer.  Briskly looking around,
I spot, walk over to/ a water fountain,
catching the sea I bubble up.  Bellboys stopped
before the elevator, yellow mums,
or are the asters, bud and break
from their shoulders.  Bloomings unfold us.  But, here,
much seems unwanted.  Still, the doorman only
glances, and the clerk lets me browse.  They know
their needle of unconcern will work me out
in time; that silence is the better word
to use, those easy coins.  A Cadillac--
red!--arrives.  Straining to follow it, I
accidentally nick the doorman's heel,
etching out.  He stares slant at me, then sets
a smile for the Cad guests.






 Fond du Lac: page 6
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Brian A. J. Salchert