1
A streetgirl, already at 17
tough as nails, a husky laugh. Strapped
to a table, getting a shock treatment, she grunted
jubilantly. The nurse snarled.

Eventually, freed, she hung out with guys
who’d been to Tunisia and who’d seen, other times,
the Nile’s deltas.

Or maybe it was different.
She might have been a straightlaced welder
in a shipyard during WWII
or a finicky salesgirl, patrolling
the lingerie department in the Market St. Woolworth’s.

Well, whoever she was, she didn’t wear
no gold rings on her toes. Not then. Not ever.


2
Always a wrench or a chisel in his hand
he kept looking
for half obliterated objects to fix --
coffee grinders, sinkpipes, anything.

Rumor had it he was a converted shakedown man
who although he smooched pictures of the Virgin
still relied on savvy
for getting by.

Sometimes at night you could hear him
laughing through the walls
as, bored and scared, he ripped
memories from his head with a pliers just for the fun of it.

An unskilled statistic, once
half his yellow teeth got knocked out
in a fight at Ebbets Field.
After that, he outfoxed
the Census Bureau and disappeared.