STEEL MAN

He was a man of steel
                my father

Thirty-nine years pouched in the searing belly
                of the thirty-six inch plate mill

an acrid finger poking from the shore of Lake Michigan
                in an act of brazen defiance

For four decades he endured
                the blistering breath of white hot ingots

as they slithered through the mill
                performing their reptilian undulations

of semi-liquid menace
                with temperatures so intense

it felt like your skin was charring
                and your bones were melting like so much wax

Every day his lungs filled with iron ore dust
                as dense as the canopy of fog

hanging over the predawn lake
                and every week a different shift

scrambled his circadian rhythms
                until night and day lost their identities

causing my brother and I to live in dread
                of waking him in the middle of the afternoon

when the unforgiving night shift
                cheated him of valued rest

For thirty years he carried a scar
                on his right leg, a permanent memento

he often joked about as if it were a mere insect bite                
                before admitting to my brother and I

right after his retirement that an errant crane
                had nearly cost him a limb

Now the mill is cold and deserted
                an oxidized corpse on the bank of Lake Michigan

and as if their fates were forever bound and dissoluble
                they have both succumbed to nature’s forces

the cold, unflinching mill
                and that indefatigable man of steel
                                                                      my father

WE ARE GOLDEN

Like the early morning sky
glistening in my eye
          we are golden

Like the sun’s midday hue
I am blind without you
          ‘cause we’re golden

Like the glaze that paints day’s end
it’s the radiance you send
          for we are golden

MEMORY LAPSE

I don’t remember leaving the womb
nor do I recall leaving your heart;
yet one was my birth,
the other my death

SPRING TEASE

March can be such a tease…

          If it were a woman
          her aqueous tongue would be
          flitting along my neck like an ant
          tracking a trail of sugar,
          while her hand slithered
          toward my male vulnerability

          And when I would attempt to reciprocate,
          she would curl just out of reach,
          disinterested in the very emotions
          she stirred in the recesses of my gut.

          April, on the other hand--
          ah…April,

          Now there is a month that will go
          all the way.

BULLSHIT & DREAMS

There is a fine filament
between bullshit and dreams
that separates triumph from despair,
reality from fable

For what is bullshit
but dreams led astray,
deluded by fraudulent aspirations,
corrupted by fallacious reasoning

Dreams symbolize the purest of hopes
as yet unstained by the virus
of bullshit that mocks and erodes
and revels in failure

Bullshit is too often
the temptress that lures the innocent
into unsavory scenarios gilded
with grandiose promises of glory and riches

So we must, like adroit tightrope walkers,
negotiate that microscopic filament,
for history is replete with forlorn tales
of those who lost their balance

between
bullshit and dreams

FACE ACROSS THE WAY

She sat at a nearby table
directly in my line of vision,
and as I glanced up
from my black hazelnut decaf
I caught sight of her exotic looks:
cheekbones imperiously prominent,
eyes the shape of almonds,
dark as ebony shards,
wide and curious,
sleek hair boyishly cropped and lightly waved,
black as licorice,
skin unlined and imbued
with the hue of caramel

She seemed an amalgam of flavors:
African-American melded with Caucasian
with a tincture of Hispanic,
the riddle made more curious
by her white male companion
upon whose words she appeared to dawdle

Furtively, I would peek over my friend’s shoulder
to admire the beauty at the other table,
wrapped in a beige sweater,
its V-neckline pointing to her erotic crevice,
which I imagined to be warm and inviting
and crying for exploration

My friend spoke and I nodded perfunctorily,
more concerned with making eye contact
with the caramel face,
 as if it would link us like modem to computer,
and instantaneously we could communicate
our urges and whims
beyond this gulf of tables

She smiled at her companion,
her teeth as white as priceless porcelain
and haloed by ample lips
touched lightly by a mere suggestion
of magenta lip gloss.
I wondered how they would feel
on  my neck and mouth,
pliant and dangerous,
consumptive and loving,
whispering odes to our passion

For a second as fleeting as a note
in a Charlie Parker solo,
our eyes met,
and in an act of emotional cowardice
I looked away, seeking protection
in the faces of the other patrons,
preferring to think she now discovered my existence
and toyed with her own fantasies

Eventually I recouped my courage
to gaze at the tables
beyond my friend’s right shoulder,
where my nameless angel
sat preoccupied with her companion,
my face an anonymous extra
in this café scene

ON OUR ANNIVERSARY

On our anniversary
       as I watch you dress, I notice
        how lightly the years have brushed your face

I look at you
        and still see the piquant beauty
        with the brooding eyes

You are eternally
        the effervescent high school girl
        all giggles and breathless kisses

stolen on star-crusted
        beaches on evenings we hoped
         would last forever

You turn from the mirror
        to see me looking back at you;
        your smile washes away five decades

and I’m eighteen again
        standing on the beach, finally realizing
        the evening will last forever



GOLDEN PEARLS

The years accumulate like clam shells
washed ashore upon the beige sands of a Caribbean beach

Like fanciful children, we open the first ones
with eagerness, others with trepidation, and still others
as if ensconced in a dream, moving with rote routine,
giving only vague thought to what lay inside

Yet each pearl is immersed in its own special beauty
that only we two can fully appreciate,
for we shaped each one, polished its sheen,
imbued it with a glint reflected from our eyes,
like the twinkle from a far off galactic fire
burning since the beginning of time

The years, like the pearls,
have varied in quality. Some were dull and blemished,
misshapen and undersized.
While so many others were perfectly formed,
smooth and untarnished, radiating a flawless sheen,
full and breathtaking

Yet all of them are strung together
piece by piece, until they form
an unbroken necklace,  unique and permanent,
like time itself, each one a chapter in our history,
the strand binding us together

You are my golden pearl, my treasure,
the content and meaning of my life,
my purpose and motivation

And over a half century ago when the first pearl was formed
flawless and symmetrical, I knew then
I would lock each one away in the sanctuary
of my heart and soul