My House Was Always Wet

Sunday, November 8, 1981

My House Was Always Wet

Faucets dripped.
Gutters overflowed.
The old roof, Vermont slate, leaked.
The two toilets, mysterious machines,
ran, whistled, gurgled, clunked in the night.
Drains backed up with smelly gray suds.
Cellar walls weeped.
Pipes shrieked.

If I took a shower upstairs,
downstairs a water stain
grew on Granma's ceiling.
Once after an extra long shower
("What were you doing  in that shower, boy?")
Granma's ceiling
collapsed.

My father was no plumber.
Once he broke a china sink.
Ripped a hole in a bedroom wall,
then didn't come home at all, at all.

Doors grew mildew, ceilings grew mold.
Floor joists quietly rotted.
My own sprouting body grew fungus
in places I didn't dare mention.

Sister moved across the sea;
Brother, to the coast;
Granma, to the hospital
and gave up the ghost.

I, too, traveled far
though moisture haunted
my every move:
sweating palms,
saliva of lips,
teardrops and their salty tracks,
juice of genitals, flood of birth,
milk of breast…  The house
was leaking love, my friend,
and no pipe ever
brought it back.



Now Grown

Now grown,
in a dripping house of my own,
being plumber and father combined,
why don’t we have love
most all of the time?

An Embarrassing Moment

October 4, 1984
 
An Embarrassing Moment

Mild stomach flu but a full day’s labor:
pipes soldered, drywall patched.  Done.
Motoring home in my pickup
among the mansions of Atherton
after dark, without warning I
suddenly need to — immediately —
must absolutely at this moment
take an extreme
crap.
Stop the truck.  Out.
In front of a vast estate I squat behind a
RONALD REAGAN FOR PRESIDENT
lawn sign and let fly
among some pumpkins.
As I rebuckle beside
the steaming puddle,
lights come on flooding
the garden while an alarm
starts blatting and a dark dog is
running.  A man is shouting
through the glare but I’m gone
and accelerating while the dog chases
my left rear wheel so I never hear
the words but maybe the man is thanking me
for the fertilizer or exhorting me to vote for Ron.
I regret missing his
statement having already
made mine.