in the hammersmith garage (1987)

winter prys its icy fingers
into the crack of the huge sliding door,
pointed colors gust in the car exhaust.

greasy joe slides under a car
&wrenches at pipes, straining
not unlike a man milking a cow
in the frost of four a.m. iowa

he loosens a nut that drains the oil
and the cow wobbles
weakheaded. he puts a feedsack over the hood

and gives the back fender a
fleshy, familiar slap


Lawrence, Kansas 1987
published in the Allegheny Review
won William Herbert Carruth Poetry prize at K.U.