The Municipal Subterranean

Goggled, menacing, evidently mucked about
and snarled at earth gear, a man rises
out of a manhole on the main street
of my peaceful town, so much an old Saharan
veteran, Rommel-pointing his tank across
the four-year stretch of memorable sands.
Though long gone to his grass roots,
second row, Veterans’ Section, Riverside,
I think of Frank Parkinson, tanker, Tiger
of Tobruk, acetylene smile bright-burnt
on an oil-dirty face; the old goggles,
all aflame, still set high on his high
forehead, daring to remember Egypt’s
two dark eyes, and Panzers off the dunes.

Absolution

(for Hugh Menzies)

You think I don’t remember you.
Your nose was red, ears outsized,
you moved lanky in your lanky way,
you had blue eyes, your cheeks red.
In front of the State Theater on Sat-
urday matinees you towered over us.
But I do remember you, Hughie.I do!
Your hair was tall in front, dark;
your arms were long, your nose English
like mine’s Irish but mostly for word music.
You wore dark blue denim dungarees.
Once a blue jacket with red sleeves.
You didn’t skate with us, but I remember
your picking leaves, watching the sun
fall all the way through the filaments.
I saw you Saturdays, later on, watching
us play football at the stadium. Then,
how Time plays tricks on all of us,
we were halfway across the world in Asia,
carrying carbines and M-1s in the Land
of the Morning Calm. Asia’s sun set on you
Hughie, but I walked out of the same hole.
Each morning now, on my way to work,
old shells echo, the infiltrator eyes me,
cursed land mine sits like a maimed turtle
in my path, dark clouds grow darker,
dread rain becomes a yellow madness,
deep earth opens its other arms,
and your name flies its black letters
on a gray cast iron sign in East Saugus.
Once, when I was late for work, snow
on the hillside, I saw the flowers on the pole.
I keep wondering for you, Hughie,
Who put out the flowers in January?
Is there a friend with a long memory?
A girl who dreams? Did you visit?