MEN ON STRIKE
Men on parade. Men
migrant Hispanic and red
necks in long hair clean
shaven the kind my
daddy bought parts from never
touching some of them
could rewire your grand
ma’s house sharing their wife’s tort
illas. They’d have stopped on
the narrow shoulder
of the highway to help you change
a flat or driven to town
to fill up the gas
can they were lending you or
given you a jump in
the near-deserted
parking lot, and here they are
now—embarrassed as
hell, like you had asked
them to hug their neighbor’s wife
in church at the kiss
of peace, you know they
secretly like it. The men
I like most answer
not yet instead of
none that I know of some wear
Cuban heels and tight
jeans and spin when they
dance you. The tall black Southern
leader counter clock
wise keeps time today
calling whoooo’s the man? Calling
who’sgonnago? in
sharp beats—merengue
they are embarrassed to dance
with invisible
partners called below
minimum wage! Insufficient
benefits! Every
one looking attract
ing attention the fact of
bodies as things with
needs where before there
had been only necklace links
impossibly de
licate their daughters
brought them unknotting themselves
beneath thick fingers
engines shuddering
to the quick strike of a spark
plug the free combusting
that which a casing
contains all the invisible
forces that keep the machines
of the world worlding
and pinned to the self-cleaning
sky. Chrysler building
in full bloom, forgive them they
feel bad, like they ruined a play
ground. This one here, where
just past Broadway the Grace
building slides to a stop at
their feet.
—from Rattle #39, Spring 2013
Tribute to Southern Poets
__________
Marcela Sulak (Texas): “I write poetry because I read too much of the wrong kind of literature growing up on a rice farm.”
