Knowing his profession
I am hesitant
to shake his hand
in simple greeting
for his cuticles hang like bad habits, and lost paychecks.
The darkened clouds under fingernails are without weather, ossified, vilified, petrified
And if God was a Roto-rooter this man would be deified
the industrial snake,
he feeds through a pipe
has no skin to shed, won’t crane its neck for coins or favors.
He uses the verbs “to rout” “to weed out” “to de-root”
as if the CIA, of waste material
Only my grassy knoll has to be dug up
for access.
Ossified, vilified, petrified.
If I threw him a bottle of Old Spice
Would he catch it?
“These are my same shoes I started the business with”
Oh that’s nice.
Just Like the unhappy, his boots have somehow survived,
vanquished rubber testaments to many a ruined rumpus room.
With steel reinforced toes he has rode baptism’s backwash
to three children.
Septic Man’s helper (soon to be on store shelf near you)
Pins his ankles
as he leans, over the domestic abyss
“Hold on tight, hold on tight my friend”
Now this is trust, really trust. To be suspended over sewage by your partner. That is the definition of trust.. There is really nothing left to learn
except what’s causing the back up.
Searching the well for problems, his flashlight beams bend
in angles yet to be figured when it comes to excrement.
A voice from underground
“My god my hat fell off. I’ve lost my hat,
my favorite Mack Truck hat. “
So the Mack truck bulldog descends.
Probably grimaces below the waterline,
mutters sinking acceptance,
shows the last of its tobacco slash milk-boned stained teeth
barks it’s final racial slur.
Mouths its last Conway Twitty ditty.
“Will it clog the tank”
Huh?
Will it clog the tank
His most coveted possession gone and I am the rabid consumer
concerned only with results, foaming, obsessing on future drainage.
Ossified, vilified, petrified.
The hat was a gift from a waitress he screwed in a utility closet.
She wore Channel Number Five but the closet reeked of Mr. Clean.
He’ll never forget that smell combo. Never. Must be the smell of love he thought.
So she let him pick out anything he wanted.
In the glass case was a Bowie knife, this hat and a porcelain pig.
It is in-between the bowie knife and the porcelain pig that life begins.
There is really nothing left to learn.
|
