Turning
~ for Patrick
It
was the elegant way his hair swelled from his temples,
fell
to frame the broad rock of his forehead, the way
his
teeth clamped on a cigar, there at the lathe while curls
of
rosewood dropped to the floor, helpless and fragrant,
black
cinders of ebony flew up and speckled his beard, and
those
goggles he wore, the imprints they left above his ears.
Strangeness I could sink into like a
long bath.
It
was the click of his old house’s black iron latches,
twist
of the narrow stairs that disclosed the upstairs
as
a country apart from the rooms below. And it
was
the dark third floor landing under the eaves,
with
its dank, sprung love seat, the busy desperation
of
squirrels trapped between the floorboards. It was
when
he asked me to stay for breakfast -- overdone
scrambles,
toast, on a chipped plate. I sipped black
coffee
while, from the roof, a whippoorwill turned
its
mad song like a wheel, circling, almost shouting.
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