Soul Data: Poems

V [Linoleum]

South of Spokane Street, a gear works

turns its teeth--shadows in a cavern,

through the cycles of a drop-forge piston,

heft themselves and recoil in a dark

rain of sparks, the echo off the blocks--

pa-tang!--arriving late, repeats itself again,

a ceaseless, a remorseless hammering home,

a point made and lost in the patterns of work.

Across the street, a hunkered stretch of houses,

swing sets and cyclone fencing, a clatch of cars.

The agent shrugs--"It's zoned Residential/

Light Industrial"--pa-tong! A lunatic fringe

of gladiolus fronts the walkways and the rows

of empty rooms we roll by at low idle.