The Workmen for Alan Michael Parker


Just before the workmen, worthy of their hire,
come into view, they are announcéd by strange melody
and syncopation – the rising and percussive songs
of nails, like questions; the descending arias
of saws, like answers. The rat-a-tat of nail guns
in a rhythm section repetition:
shave and a hair cut, shave and a hair cut –
the very music of Vishnu and Shiva –
personified in hardware.

A woman, sunbathing naked on the roof, gazes out
into the sky’s thin sea, watching clouds scud by
like schooners. A woman who, between the din and drum,
becomes a tunéd fork, tines humming to the whine of saws, the drums of hammers.
And the workmen, worthy of their hire, become arouséd
at the sight of skin, that world, that sea of skin, into the which
they each and all wish now to be drownéd.
And gravity fails, in a localizéd manner.
And the naked woman rises, in a profane annunciation.
And the workmen, worthy of their hire,
stare into the future and begin to speak in tongues.