Oct
18
Quarry
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We swam in the huge pit
out behind Tin Lizzie, (at least
that’s what we called it)
the ferrous Golgotha where
most of our fathers prayed all day.
Now there’s a hole in the air where
the silver k-chunk! would be
nightmares in the shape of
snips and hammers shaping the
mettle of our lives.
I can smell our skinny, salty bodies
before sweat turned to something
goatish; before we had to be modest
since all arms and legs and torsos
were the same. Our slick piglet squeals were
threaded between the metal rollers as we
jumped into the cold quarry water
knowing in some kid sense that our
fathers would thrash us if they knew we
were there.
Michael’s dad was killed that summer.
He was a string, a button, a sleeve,
then nothing.
I don’t remember if he cried at the
die-cut company funeral, but I can still
see how strange and small he looked
way inside that suit, behind the clip on tie;
how he seemed to even wear the
silver sound of it on his skin
banging and snipping a mile away.
The tin lilies hadn’t even begun to
rust before Michael and his mom
drove off. Past the quarry, passed the
the good things of childhood drowning
in dark blue suits;
we didn’t talk about him afterward.
It’s the talisman we held between us
the tacit understanding that if we
didn’t speak of it,
it wouldn’t happen to us.
Our fathers
who aren’t in heaven
would still come home
maybe even to thrash us for being
at the quarry.